SPRING: A Roadmap
Most consider the first of January the start of the new year (and so it is on the Gregorian calendar), but there are as many different new year dates as there are cultures and communities on this wild planet of ours. Springtime might not be the official start of the year, but spring heralds the start of a new season and it brings a freshness that January’s quiet cannot begin to match. After a cold and fallow winter, spring signals reemergence. ‘Vasant ritu’ or the spring season (in Sanskrit: वसन्त) in India is a time of growth and possibility; a fresh start, a clean slate and a time of rebirth.
In spring we begin again.
Spring is levity and the contentment that stems from the knowledge that for half a year to come our bodies will be warm, days will be bright and long, and nights will be sultry. This time of year is synonymous with potential and a delicious uptick of energy that’s inspired by warmer weather and brighter sunshine. You can feel the excitement begin to rise after the dormancy of the preceding season. These months hold promise, potential... in Sanskrit texts Vasant is ‘a world freshly made’ and I cannot think of a better description for the first few weeks of springtime.
You see this reflected in most cultures; in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) all things mediate Yin and Yang; the seasons are no exception. The Huangdi Neijing, also known as The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic, is the most important text in Chinese medicine, and it states that the summer months are the time to build or replenish yang, while in winter one must reserve/preserve. “Spring: sprouting/start, Summer: growth, Fall: harvest, Winter: reserve/hibernate.”
If summer is Yang’s highest point, with its bright, hot energy, then winter is the Yin apex, quiet and dark. Spring and autumn are treasured and transitional times between those two extremes. As spring’s yang energy begins to wax, days stretch, getting both longer and warmer. Outside, plants begin to blossom and animals emerge and stretch their legs. Nature begins to sprout.
“The desire to spring clean isn’t mandated, but it is instinctual. We release what is stagnant, and we prepare to create.”
How best to flow in-step with spring? How do we take advantage of longer and warmer days and thrive as the world also begins its swell to ripeness? So much of this is intuitive: we soak up more of the sun’s rays, we move more to take advantage of all that lovely, rising energy as well as socialise more and take advantage of a rising desire to be out. In our homes and bodies, we will likely feel that desire for cleansing and of letting go… of habits that don’t feel so great any longer, of clothing and other bits you’ve amassed. The desire to spring clean isn’t mandated, but it is instinctual. It’s like wiping the slate clean, and then knowing you have this blank slate upon which to chart a new route. We release what is stagnant, and we prepare to create.
In TCM the heart is the organ associated with warmth and the fire element, so when thinking about movement consider more backbends to really stoke that flame and stretch open the front of the body after a cold winter and to open up your heart as you allow yourself to dream of newness. Think about shedding skin: a literal buffing of the skin that’s been under wraps all winter as well as letting go of the physical things that weigh you down. It feels like a great time to also work through internal clutter: are you ready to spend some time sweeping through the cobwebs in your mind as well as in your home?
Honour the cycle: rebirth is here.
“The world and I reciprocate one another. The landscape is hardly a determinate object; it calls forth feelings from me”
