Love Circle, Sunrise, & Good Intentions

Vernal Equinox?
I've seen it on the calendar for years and just brushed it off as having something to do with the signal of Spring.

A good friend of mine, Maranda, mentioned it to me earlier this week. She asked if I wanted to meet her at Love Circle (a small road in Nashville that overlooks the city) at Sunrise to burn our intentions for the year. "Huh?," I said with a crinkled nose. I'm always open for new adventures, so without much hesitation - I agreed. She told me to work on what I wanted or intended for myself this year and write it down.

I went to the computer to find out - "What is this thing they call Vernal Equinox? I knew it was a change of seasons, but after a brief google search, here's what I found. Equinox means "equal night." The Sun will cross directly over the Earth's equator. Because the sun is positioned above the equator, day and night are about equal in length all over the world during the equinoxes. I never knew, but people have recognized the vernal equinox for thousands of years. There are lots of rituals and traditions surrounding the coming of spring. Early people celebrated for the basic reason that their food supplies would soon be restored. The date is significant in Christianity because Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. It is also probably no coincidence that early Egyptians built the Great Sphinx, so that it points directly toward the rising Sun on the day of the vernal equinox. In Japan, Vernal Equinox Day is an official national holiday and is spent visiting family graves and holding family reunions. In many Arab countries, Mother's Day is celebrated on the March equinox.



So, this year just as I plan to Spring Clean my home, I've set aside a Spring Cleaning for myself to create space for new abundance that will come my way.

When I started writing it out, I kept saying...I want....I want...I want. It felt weird, and I called Maranda up for a little more guidance on the matter. She suggested that saying "want" admits that you're lacking. Hmmmm....good point. With my English-degreed mind, I went to a thesaurus searching for the right words. I looked up "intend" and words like aspire, determined, aim, dedicate, look forward to popped up. It got my juices flowing and away I wrote. I covered things from our home, finances, personally, career wise, relationships, vacations. It all came out!



This morning I woke up before the sun came up and got ready. Bundled up with some matches, a coffee, my camera, and my intentions, I headed for Love Circle. The sun was starting to light the Earth when we got there. We climbed to the top, made some final adjustments, played a quick game of Paper, Rock, Scissors to see who went first, and I started to reading out loud my intentions. After we read them, we burned them as the sun came over the horizon. We opened our arms and voiced our acceptance of the goodness and abundance we would receive this year.

It was a fun experience! I'll definitely do it again. If you want, I encourage you all to do the same. It's never too late. Vernal Equinox was just a cool day to do it!