Have you been thinking of celebrating the Spring Equinox this year but aren’t sure how? Well, here are some witchy tips to help you get into the festive spirit this year. The Spring Equinox falls on March 19th this year, earlier than it is usually celebrated because 2024 is a leap year!
Earth based religions follow the path of the sun and view this journey as a holy allegory for life. There are 4 main holidays, known as sabbats, which are when the day is shortest, when the day is longest, and two which celebrate when the day and night are equal in length. Each of these sabbats mark the beginning of a new season.
The Spring Equinox is one of those days which is in equal length to the night (equinox, equal, get it?) From the Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year) to the Spring Equinox the days grow steadily longer and longer.
Imagine life before phones and streetlights. The passage of the sun from its darkest point to its brightest point (the Summer Solstice) is something you wouldn’t be able to miss! Though our tools have become more complex, leading to very different lives than we would have been living 100-200 years ago, we are still natural beings made from the earth. Earth based religions are based around the fact that we should be more in tune with nature because, as the saying goes, “as above, so below,” AKA everything is connected.
There’s nothing folk traditional holidays love more than a good bonfire. It makes sense, seeing as fire was the first tool humans used and wielded to their benefit. Fire symbolizes the light of the sun, as well as mental illumination, passion and drive, danger and destruction. It’s a constant reminder that all things in life hold the power to build as well as destroy.
We light a fire at the sun god’s birth–winter solstice–and we keep it burning all throughout the year to celebrate his growth in the sky by midsummer and his eventual death in the fall.
The Spring Equinox marks the beginning of Spring in the northern hemisphere (it’s in September for the southern hemisphere). Spring ushers in the growth of flora and fauna, some extra sunlight and a good dose of rain to help mother nature spring back to life.
One way to celebrate the birth of spring this year is to make your very own flower crown. Flowers popping up out of the dirt is one of the first signs that spring has sprung, so adorning your head with a ring of flowers is a fun, simple and stylish way to celebrate the season. Plus, there is a lot of room for creativity here, so you can make this tradition one of your unique makings!
The Greek pantheon offers us a never-ending supply of inspiration. Why? Because the Greeks were among the most notable people to bring a real humanness and vivacity to their depictions of gods. They are jealous, vengeful, horny and adulterous. There’s something so enticing about a god whose toils and troubles mirror your own.
One of the most beloved goddesses is Persephone, daughter of Demeter who was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the Underworld to be his bride. Demeter, who rules over crops and all things that grow from the earth, killed all her plants and left the earth barren in the wake of her grief. She refused to allow anything to grow on earth until Persephone returned to her.
This is a story used to explain the seasons, so every year in Fall and Winter Persephone is with her husband Hades in the Underworld. Spring ushers in Persephone return to Mount Olympus and her mother, so why not help Demeter welcome Persephone back to this world with a beautiful altar?
Persephone is the goddess of flowers, but also queen of the Underworld, so things such as flowers and bones are usually found on her altar. However, what makes altars fun is that it is a creative collaboration between you and the god or goddess in question, so don’t be afraid to jazz up the altar with whatever your heart desires! Just be sure to put a few pomegranate seeds on the altar (I suggest 6 of them).
Oranges, along with bonfires, are a symbol of the sun god, which is why they are often incorporated into the greater sabbat celebrations. There’s no limit to the creativity you can use here but putting out a bowl of oranges and other citrus fruits is a great way to start.
You can also enhance your wardrobe with orange slice earrings, orange and yellow clothes, orange nail polish, socks with oranges on them, you can even dye your hair orange if you’re feeling bold!
This is the time when day and night are in perfect unison, so every day from now until the Summer Solstice the days will be longer than the nights. One great way to celebrate this stretching of the days is to welcome this one bright and early, as soon as it rises!
Grab a cup of orange juice and watch the sunrise on March 19th. A helpful tip to make this sunrise feel more like a celebration than a morning where you woke up too early is to have an offering or a greeting ready for the sun. Think of it like the sun is getting off its plane and you’re in baggage claim holding up a big sign welcoming it.
If you feel called to do something elaborate for this sunrise then by all means, do it! I find that sometimes the best rituals are the simplest. Shouting, “Hi sun, I love you!” can be just as powerful as anything else.
