Reflections on the Equinox

 pull [noun]:

Sometimes it feels like our bones are made of magnets. Meanwhile, the moon goes for its daily walk. The world is always tilted, as if listening to something.
-Megan Moriarty

I am immediately drawn in by the forest. The trees reach out to me, casting themselves into shadows three times as tall as the trunks themselves. The moon beckons also, outwards and upwards on this mountain road.

For anyone else who sought high ground last Wednesday night to watch the moonrise and marvel at its size and brightness as it first peaked out over the treetops, it won’t come as a surprise that on that night the intensity of the lunar pull actually increased causing a greater variation in tides. As I begin to walk, my tread slides and I become aware of my feet sinking every so slightly with each step. So fitting on the night of the “worm moon,” named for the return of soft ground and the emergence of earthworms.

Although I’ve spent most of the evening looking up, it’s as if the ground is reminding me to look down also. The mud beneath me has a satisfying silt quality to it, and a darkness evident even by moonlight. This nuance in granular composition makes me wonder: What was here before? What lies beneath? What gives rise to this place?

Moss fruiting bodies in the spring snow.

Ramps

Rattlesnake Plantain

We are at the top of Briery for the super moon and vernal equinox, two celestial events that haven’t occurred on the same night since 2000 and won’t again until 2030. Although the alignment of cosmic elements isn’t something that typically attracts my attention, the intensity of this confluence peaked my interest. A super moon, or a “perigee syzygy,” is a full moon that coincides with the closest moment of the moon’s orbit. Based on my recent googling, the perigee is the point at which the moon is closest to the Earth in it’s orbit, and a syzygy is the lining up of 3 celestial bodies and occurs every full moon, new moon, and eclipse. So not only is the Sun-Earth-Moon system aligned, but the moon is half bathed in light, half shrouded in darkness. And this coincidence also happened to coincide with this year’s vernal equinox, the moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator northbound, making the day and night equal in length. And with a good bit of that night left, I decide to continue on my path.

As I walk and wonder how far I would follow the pull of the moon, I find myself at the edge of a large puddle where the road should be. The glassy surface creates another inverted universe, where the moon is still full, but shines up from the ground rather than the sky. As the season when days continue to get longer, Spring seems to be rife with the symbolism of things beginning again, rebirth, regeneration, renewal: to forward thinking and planning.

This night, however, seems to be urging me to reflect. To remember to look down and back, to take a closer look at the soil that gives rise to the Spring, and to seek the magic that can be found underfoot. To reflect on what has already been accomplished before surging forward with everything left to do and prepare. 

When I wake the next morning to say my goodbyes to the moon, following it once again up and over a mountain ridge, I am amazed to already find the first signs of Spring beneath my feet as they pass over the grounds of the Yew. Seemingly overnight, determined buds of flowers and ramps have been pulled up and over leaves and snow. As I sit atop a sandstone outcropping surrounded by mountain laurel, I feel a reverence for the winter equal to my excitement for the spring; it is periods of dormancy that allow for new growth. I listen to the birds as the day breaks
and find myself looking forward to a growing season in which I hope to find balance, to notice the reflections in the puddles, the dark side of the moon, and the ground beneath the sprouts.

Ruthie Cartwright
Education Assistant,
AmeriCorps Member