Welcome to the first day of Spring! And in Maine spring has sprung with the force of summer. I am currently sitting outside on my porch in what feels like 80 degree sunshine. I am wishing I had not taken the bold step of throwing out all of my old t-shirts that no longer fit. All I have left are work shirts, running shirts, and this one long sleeve shirt made of light-weight fabric. If it stays as warm as predicted, I have a feeling my long-sleeve shirt will get a scissors make-over and become a short sleeve shirt soon!
So, today is the first day of spring or the vernal equinox. The consummate researcher (or 'Googler') I am, I have done some research on this important day of the year. Equinox means, literally, 'equal night'. So, equal day and equal night. Today is a day of perfect balance for our planet. And this has got me thinking about balance in life in general.
Most pop psychologists and self-help folks talk at length about finding balance in our lives. Balance between work and home, between rest and responsibility, between this and that. We are told to constantly seek balance. And many wonderful religious traditions identify balance as a virtue, a state of being to be striven for. But for the most part people speak of balance in the same non-specific ways people who tell me they are spiritual or not religious tend to. It's an idea, a good one, but one which cannot be nailed down.
Maybe this makes it better. Maybe not. But balance is more than a nice idea. It is a cosmic reality.
It seems our planet is always seeking balance. When humans do too much of one thing, the plant reacts in an attempt to find stability. And as our actions have led to global warming and therefore thrown our planet out of balance, we experience extremes in weather. The planet can feel off-kilter. Not quite right. Just like today. 70 degree weather in March for Maine is rare. For the next two days, it will be in the 80s. In Maine. In March. This is not normal. And while I am enjoying it for the time being, I worry what this means for our planet's sense of balance. What have we, as humans put on this planet to care for God's Creation, done to create such dis-harmony?
Unless you have been living under a rock or on some totally cut off island (and my blog stats do not indicate anyone is reading for either of those locations) then you know what you are 'supposed' to do. We are supposed to recycle, reduce our carbon emission, pick up after ourselves, leave only our footprints. We know this. But it is so much easier to drive to work. It is so much easier to just throw the paper in the trash rather than deal with the hassles of recycling. We grumble about gas prices, while standing at the pump, paying to fill up our tanks, just to release more fumes into the atmosphere. We are human. We are not perfect and do not always do what we are supposed to.
I am most certainly guilty of these things. And I have not yet met someone who isn't, though I have read stories about people who are trying really hard to bring balance back to our planet. But here is something heartening I learned while doing my research on equinox. The vernal equinox falls on the day which is mostly equal day and equal night. It is not perfect, it is the closest we get. True moment of balance is just that, a moment in time. We recognize the day as one of balance, but we are actually recognizing a day when we get as close as we can. It is not perfect and neither to we have to be.
Sometimes the thought of perfection can be paralyzing. It can be for me. I can't do it all so I should not even bother trying. I know I am not alone. But, maybe if we thought of today as a day when we will get as close as we can, then the possibilities will open up just a little more. "I have to drive to work because of lack of public transportation, but I will recycle my newspaper instead of throwing it away." I can't do this BUT I can do that. Smaller bites, getting as close as we can, just like today. It seems much less over-whelming and far more in our ability to create true balance.
We are a part of one Creation. We have a responsibility to honor it. I invite people today to think of one thing they can do it help restore our planet's balance. Just one. What a fun what to celebrate equinox!
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