Ostara-Spring Equinox

On this 22th September in 2021, at 16:20 in Santiago of Chile (press here to see the time equivalence in your zone) is the Spring Equinox. When wespeak about the hour and minutes in which the equinox occurs, it's because we're speaking about a specific position in which the Earth is respecto to the Sun. Although this astronomic position last only a precise moment, during that day and the closer days it is possible to observe an equivalent quanity of hours of light and darkness (or day and night). This, in conjuntion to the gradual growth in the light-hours, makes the beginning of the season that we clasify as spring. This phenomenum has originated different celebrations and traditions around the world because of the progressive start of this season (which obviously we began to perceive before the equinox) is associated to different aspects that were vital to the agricultural society from the past and that actually keep on being vital for the subsistence both from the world that we know and the humanity. But the Spring Equinox is not just a reason to party (althogh I invite you to make it anyway), but it is also the beginnig of a diversity of natural phenomena proper from the season that generate objective changes un our physiology and the environment that souround us, and we can make use of it for our personal and spiritual growth. In this entry I will speak about the different aspects of this date and season, and how you can make use of them to build a better life.     

What is Ostara?

Ostara is the neopagan name that is given to the Spring Equinox festivity, being one of the eight sabbats that are celebrated along the year. I like to use this name because it reminds me the folklore associated with this date and because it is shorter to say it with just one word. Furthermore, Ostara refers to me to the celebration that I make in this date, while I use the term Spring Equinox mainly for the astronomic event. 

According to Wikipedia, Ostara is the name that germanic cultures gave to goddess of spring. En works of the XVIII century the benedictine monk Bede declared that during the month of April the anglosaxon pagans used to celebrate a festivity honoring this goddes (keep in mind that in the northern hemisphere spring begins at the end of march), but with time this tradition faded and was replaced by the Christian Easter. Anyway, it is important to specify that along history a variety of authors have questiones the veracity of Bede's statements, thinking that he himself invented this goddes. Although there are no exact reports precising the symbols associated with this goddes, there are plenty of data that allow to infere that hares and rabbits, as well as eggs, were symbols or manifestations of the goddes OStara. And yes, it is highly probable that the story of the Easter Bunny bringing chocolate eggs during Easter, which began its celebration in the Northern Hemisphere and therefore, during spring, has a relationship with this goddes and the festivities and legends associated with her (or other similar goddes). Personally I enjoy consuming content related to legends and theories about the historical origin of the festivities associated to this date, as well as its misticism and spiritual potencial, so I invite you to study about them, for example in this Blog (ww.theseasonalsoul.com). 

Beyong the historic and legendary, you just have to stand up and walk around during spring in rural places or even "more natural" zones within the city, and you will find these signs constantly: nests or birds building them, maybe some early chicks, flowers and buds in the branches of a diveristy of trees and smaler plants and if you see some place where there's a lot of rabbits or hares, in this date you will see a lot of babies to rejoice yourself in cuteness. Ostara everywhere. All this changes start to gestate from the already mentioned phenomenum: the Spring Equinox. 

What is the Spring Equinox?

As it was mentioned previously, this term refers to an astronomic event that is related with the positions of the Sun and the Earth, that makes the hours of light almost equal to the hours of dark in the day in which this phenomenum occurs. In fact, the word equinox derives from there (equi=equal, noccio=night, refering to that the duration of the day is equal to the duration of night). 

This phenomenum occurs because the Earth is orientated to the Sun with a 23,5° inclination, and because of the traslation movement that the Earth makes around the Sun (see images below). In combination, this phenomena generate the seasons of the year, make them opposite in the northern and southern hemisphere and practically nill for the zones close to the equator. The equinoxes, either the spring or the autum one (which, as we know, will have that last name depending on in which hemisphere we are), are that moment in which the Earth and the Sun are positionet in a way that makes light arrive evenly to the earth surface. Beyond that point , one of the hemispheres will start to get a greater quantity of light than the other (see images below). 

Figure 1. Orange representing the Earth and candle light representing the Sun. As it can be seen, the orange is inclinated respect to the candle and the southern hemisphere gets its light more directly. This situation would bring as a consequence more light and later higher temperatures in the southern hemisphere (being spring or summer there). 

Figure 2. Just as this orange turn around the candle, the Earth turns around the Sun. This movement is known as translation. Note: To not get burn with the candle, I elevated the "Earth" a little and I curved the axis, but the idea can still be understood. 

Figure 3. Orange positioned in a similar manner to the Earth during equinox. Observe that both hemispheres recieve the same amount of light.

Since the sunlight arrives constantly to our planet from long time ago, different living things (and I dare to say that most of living beings that we know on Earth's surphace) have evolved aligned with it and its changes and have modeled their behaviour patterns in line with these changes. Plants and animals (and I have also read more than once about bacteria and fungi; but I will let them appart for the moment) have cells that sense the amout of light that they recieve, and when they perceive that the number of light-hours is increasing, cascades of chemical reactions and signals get activated and end up in the changes that we see; plants re-blooming and sprouting new leaves, birds and little mammals deciding to reproduce, etc. Human beings are not excluded from this phenomenum and will also start to experience physiological changes during this period. 

What physiological changes are produced in human beings during Spring?

Well, we get to something slightly complicated here. On one hand, in any side of the planet during spring the hours of light increase. However, it is well known that around the Earth climates are varied, as they do not depend solely on sunlight, and because of that, spring will not bring the same events everywhere or at least not at the same level. In this entry I will speak about the case of a mediterranean climate, which can be extrapolated to a lot of different climates, and I will give theclues of how the situation could differ in another climate. 

Lets begin with the effects of the changes in light, which are common to the whole world, except from the zones close to the equator where the amount of light-hours is almost the same along the year. The increase in the hours of light will have a strong incidence in our circadian rythm, which is regulated by hormones that are produced according to the light-hours. Lets observe the graph bellow that whows melatonin (melatonina, as the graph is in Spanish) and cortisol production. Melatonine is an hormone which its most commonly function is sleep-induction and it has been seen that the greater the sunlight exposition during the day, the greater it will be its production during night (Mead, 2008). You may also be able to understand that putting in front of us screens that produce light ruins all this a little bit, so I invite you to find out a little more about the effects of screen´s lights. This implicates that during spring, when exposition to sunlight increases (and of course, if you live locked in a coffin like a vampire this will not work for you), it will also growth the production of the hormone that puts you in the alert mode during day (cortisol), as well as the production of the hormone that helps you to sleep overnight (melatonine). Good knowledge to make use to, right? And you only have to expose yourself to the sun, which is free (at least for now). It is not necessary to go and fry yourself under the sunlight: it is enough with opening the curtains and letting your eyes to detect the increasement or decrease of light.  

Figure 4. Melatonine and cortisol production in function of hours of light. Melatonine is written as "Melatonina", as this graph is in Spanish, taken from http://melatoninainfo.com/obtener-melatonina-forma-natural/.

On the other hand, the growth of sunlight is also acompanied by an increase in vitamin D synthesis. This vitamin is produced by our body when our skin is exposed to sunlight and its presence is associated to different changes in the organism, such as a better mood or less tendency to depression (Menon et al., 2020; Milaneshi et al., 2013; Högberg et al., 2012;Wilkins et al., 2006). I want to specify, notwhithtsanding, that the relationship between vitamin D and depression and mood is debated by some studies; however, sunlight is related to mood also because of serotonine, hormone that is also associated to a good mood and which is a precursor of melatonine (i.e., the body takes serotonine and transforms it to melatonine) (Mead, 2008).

This simple changes in your body (and there's a lot that I left outside) implicate that during spring your mood and energy will be facilitated to improve. Anyway, if you're working until breaking your back, if you have a baby demanding attention the whole day or you're under any other energy-demand, the sunlight will obviously will not be enough to raise your mood and energy to the sky, but you'll be able to count on that little help. 

However, energy and probably mood of human beings do not depend exclusively on light, and here is where it gets trickier. In mediterranean climated the winter that precedes spring is characterized for being a cold and rainier season (even if these rains are just a few and of only three drops, as it has been in Santiago during the last years). This implicates that during winter we have had to be living in a range of temperature that is under the human  optimum, which is between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F) (Merriam-Webster Dicctionary) (by the way, I have read other optimal ranges here and there, but they are all close to the one I gave), to a range that is just in the optimum. I personally adore the sensation of greater movility with my body, both because of now I do not cover it with 8 layers and also because of the cold let me-and actually to every human being-with joints and muscles much less flexible. And this is the aspect that people who lives in other sort of climated have to put attention; in which temperature range you are in spring (and the other seasons). In the case of Santiago of Chile's climate (mediterranean), spring and autumn are the seasons with the best temperature range and therefore, the ones from we should get the most for our productivity. This leds me to the final part of this entry. 

How to make use of Ostara in a personal and spiritual level?

So, our body is in its best possible point respect to external factors and the rest of living beings are getting the most of light changes just as we are or even more. Nature returns to life, or better-said, returns to activity and growing. This means that not only the physiology of your body is putting it easier for you to make things, but also the environment that surrounds you is doing it. 

In the last years of my life I have used this time (from Ostara to Beltane, i.e., from aproximately 23th september to 1th november in the southern hemisphere; more about this here) to re-bloom as a person and to take action in the changes and projects that I have had in mind and want for my life. The physiological changes give the garantee of counting with greater energy and mood to do it, while the changes of my surroundings make a constant reminder to my brain of being in this syntony. I see plants beginning to germinate and eggshells as the evidence of eclosions that have ocurred. This signs, that I see constantly during the day (or at least a lot of times), motivate me to remember that I am in a period of the year in which I also have to germinate, bloom or hatch (or the three at the same time).  

But on a more spiritual level, the greater contact with nature, the conciousness about this and the events that are happening, lead me to recognize myself constantly as a part of the ecosystem in which I live. I like to make use of the symbols that the early spring has, as the eggs and the germinating seeds and to reflect about what I will germinate in my being this year. I examine the qualities that I want to cultivate and during my Ostara rituals I sow them in my person. Along the year, I work in developing this qualities as much or more than in cultivating my plants or in taking care of the birds that nested not long ago in my window (pictures below). Therefore in Ostara, not only in the Spring Equinox but also in the days that follow it, I remember those planted qualities and I allow that each bud, each tweet of a little bird, mi rabbits cup o the spring ornaments that I put in my home to remind me that these qualities and projects are germinating inside me and that I have to take care of them and to make an effort, just as the rest of the ecosystem.   

And finally, there are other events that ocurr in Ostara: there are buds that never germinate, trees that died during winter, eggs that never hatched and chicks and young animals that didn't survived. But I will talk more about this topic in my next entry.  

Figure 6. Sweetgum, weeds and grasses beginning to sprout in my commuting to work way.

Figure 7. Egg layed by a couple of  ground doves that visits me from a year ago and that decided to make the unsafest nest in the world in the window of my home, reason why we put it in this little box and tight it to the window fence. P.D. This were early chicks and currently they already learned to fly and are around there, making themselves a place in the city. 

Figure 8. Bee feeding on cherry flowers at San Cristóbal hill, reminding me that we should make use of this season to make tha job that we must do. 

Sources:

Högberg, G., Gustafsson, S. A., Hällström, T., Gustafsson, T., Klawitter, B., & Petersson, M. (2012). Depressed adolescents in a case‐series were low in vitamin D and depression was ameliorated by vitamin D supplementation. Acta Paediatrica, 101(7), 779-783.

Mead, M. N. (2008). Benefits of sunlight: a bright spot for human health.

Menon, V., Kar, S. K., Suthar, N., & Nebhinani, N. (2020). Vitamin D and depression: A critical appraisal of the evidence and future directions. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 42(1), 11-21.

Milaneschi, Y., Hoogendijk, W., Lips, P. T. A. M., Heijboer, A. C., Schoevers, R., Van Hemert, A. M., ... & Penninx, B. W. J. H. (2014). The association between low vitamin D and depressive disorders. Molecular psychiatry, 19(4), 444-451.

Wilkins, C. H., Sheline, Y. I., Roe, C. M., Birge, S. J., & Morris, J. C. (2006). Vitamin D deficiency is associated with low mood and worse cognitive performance in older adults. The American journal of geriatric psychiatry, 14(12), 1032-1040.

NOTE: English is my second language and I am still half-way learning it. I apologize for any mistakes and appreciate any important correction. If you're a spanish-spekar, you may prefer to visit the spanish version of my blog, https://paganismocientifico.blogspot.com/