Happy spring equinox - cleaning up at the witch's table

If ever a holiday connected a witch to that witch’s broom, it’s Ostara (or Spring Equinox, as Diana is so inclined.)

So many spring equinox rituals begin with a sweep - to clean out the stagnation of winter, to wake ourselves up from our winter slumbers, and perhaps freshen the sheets before the newness of spring matures into the syrupy chaos of summer sensuality.

In much European lore (at least the stuff Diana gleaned from 18th-century tomes posted on Google Books), the procedure involved starting at the back of the house and sweeping forward. We have morphed the tradition into something vaguely attached to a Lysol commercial: it isn’t just time to wake up and clean up. If modern corporations have their way, it is also time to sterilize the daylights out of every possible surface of our homes.

Of course, when you raise teenagers and have tired, too-busy adults, that whole sterilization necessity may not be wrong.

But sterility doesn’t jibe with the realities of nature. So we choose to be slightly more realistic about it: a declutter of our bedside tables, a check under the bed, and a fridge audit. Neglected floors get scrubbed, and fixtures and doorways get dusted - especially that top shelf of the fridge that sees no love any other time of year.

Ideally, that all happens in a day. Nikki and Diana both have children and jobs. If it somehow manages to happen before Beltane, OK.

While Diana will likely write something extra about all the witch cleaning to work in, we’re all functioning on limited energy—even her. Because as much as we would love pristine, perfect lives, we are neither pristine nor perfect, and probably neither are you.

Happy Ostara! You’ll get to it as you have the energy. Enjoy the return of the light!