Grounded - a personal reflection on the Spring Equinox and the COVID-19 pandemic

In the last week in the UK, we have all been grounded. Our government has told us not to leave home, except for essentials. The other meaning of the word grounded is being fully present in our body and connected to the earth. I'd like to share with you some of my journey over the last few weeks from a place of fear and panic to being grounded in being grounded!

Just over two weeks ago, a few days after my husband started to suffer with a fever, a headache, and dizziness, I started to feel unwell with similar symptoms. One minute I was burning up, the next shivering. My head pounded and I felt as if I was floating, like my head wasn't really connected to my body. These symptoms continued intermittently for about ten days. Whether or not they were symptoms of the coronavirus, we do not know.

In the middle of my illness, we had to take the decision to close the church building and stop gatherings on the premises. I worried about the safety and well-being of all those who come to church, and I was also concerned about members of my family who are in their seventies and who didn't seem to be taking on board what social distancing and self-isolating mean in practice, although I am pleased to say that they are doing so now.

I started to experience panic attacks – they were short-lived, mercifully, but very intense. I was gripped by what I can only describe as existential terror – my heart felt like it was being squeezed and it was difficult to catch my breath. Whether these were part of the symptoms of my illness or just related to the stress of the unfolding situation, I don't know. Perhaps both.

During my illness, my personal, individual spiritual practice went right out of the window. I knew it would help, but I couldn't summon the motivation. It is my custom to start my day with a period of spiritual practice. I usually start with a short body prayer, with actions that mirror the words, and then I might do some kundalini yoga or I might simply sing and dance for a few minutes. These are all practices that help me feel grounded and set me up for the day.

While I was ill, I wasn't doing my morning practice, and I wasn't feeling grounded in my body and connected to the earth. I was able to find some comfort in reading poetry. My favourite poem is 'The peace of wild things' by Wendell Berry. Two lines from this poem in particular became particularly poignant for me, “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water.”

I realised that the existential terror, which had gripped my heart during the panic attacks, was 'forethought of grief' – the terror of losing loved ones. And, as Wendell Berry says, wild things, wild creatures do not do this, they are fully present with the still water. They are fully present in their bodies and fully connected to the earth.

The turning point for me, when I was able to rediscover my presence in my body and my connection to the earth, came at the Spring Equinox. The themes of Spring Equinox are balance, with the brief equilibrium of night and day, and blossoming, the Spring flowers blooming with the surge of energy as the earth reawakens from winter rest. I didn't connect with either of those things – I felt completely off balance, and I certainly didn't feel like I was blooming and blossoming.

I am part of a Druid Grove, who have been holding rituals to celebrate the wheel of the year festivals in Heaton Park for the last decade. The Spring Equinox is known as Alban Eilir, the Light of the Earth, in the Druid tradition. On Saturday 21st March a very small group of Druids gathered for their ritual, maintaining appropriate physical distancing throughout I am assured. Those of us who were unable to join the gathering were invited to perform a solo ritual in our own spaces at the same time, so that we were energetically connected with the grove.

I performed the solo ritual in my garden. I set up my markers for the quarters – a stone for earth in the north, a stick of incense for air in the east, a lantern for fire in the south, and a shell full of water for water in the west. I cast my circle and called the quarters, feeling the wind in my hair, the sun on my face, sprinkling some of the water on my head and feeling the earth beneath my feet. I sat in the centre of the circle visualising the grove and my friends. By the end of the ritual I felt fully grounded. I felt the peace of wild things and the presence of still water.

I was also able to recognise, that, although this is an unusual Spring Equinox, the themes of balancing and blossoming are indeed playing out in the world. What is happening now, with this crisis, is a global rebalancing, and a blossoming of kindness and creativity. As Lynn Ungar says in her poem, 'Imagine', the opportunity of this calamity is a great awakening. Everyone I speak to has stories to share of kindness among friends, neighbours and strangers. Those of us whose work centres on people gathering together face to face have had to get creative quickly to continue gathering in different ways. There has been a blossoming of art, poetry, music, within our Unitarian community and everywhere.

I do not want to gloss over the difficulties of the pandemic; there are very real pains, losses and sorrows. For my part, I am now able to see it as an invitation to live a simpler life. Over the next week I invite you to find the things that ground you – that help you to feel fully present in your body and connected to the earth - and to do them every day.

Mary Magdalene and the Red Egg of Courage

What do you think of when you think of Mary Magdalene? She has been maligned and mistreated by the Church over the centuries. In medieval Western Christianity, Mary Magdalene was erroneously labelled as a repentant prostitute. In the late 6th century Pope Gregory I conflated her with Mary of Bethany and the unnamed 'sinful woman' who anoints Jesus' feet in the Gospel of Luke. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church admitted quietly that it had been mistaken in this matter, but the slur stuck and this misunderstanding has persisted into modern times.

If we search beyond the church doctrine and look again at the early Christian writings we may find that a different picture begins to emerge. To me, Mary Magdalene, like her namesake, Mary Mother of Jesus, exemplifies courage.

The poet Mark Nepo says, “The word courage comes from the Latin, cor, which literally means heart. The original use of the word courage means to stand by one’s core. This is a striking concept that reinforces the belief found in almost all traditions that living from the Center is what enables us to face whatever life has to offer.”

The canonical Gospels tell us that the while the disciples fled when Jesus was convicted and sentenced to crucifixion, Mary his Mother and Mary Magdalene had the courage to stay by his side until the end. Mary Magdalene was the first person to witness the resurrection of Jesus Christ and tell the other disciples, who did not believe her story. For this reason, she is known as the Apostle to the Apostles.

After the resurrection, Mary Magdalene disappeared from the official Christian story. She is not mentioned in Paul's Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles. Yet over the centuries, many legends about Mary Magdalene have developed. The truth of a legend is not dependent on historical fact, but the internal truth of the story. In a legend of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Mary Magdalene, a woman of independent means and influence, procured an invitation to dine at the court of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar in Rome soon after the crucifixion of Jesus. She went to Rome on a mission to protest against Pilate’s miscarriage of justice and to announce the resurrection, bringing with her an egg as a symbol of new life. The emperor scoffed at her words, "Christ is Risen!", saying, “Christ rose from the dead as surely as that egg in your hand will turn red!” The egg immediately turned red - the colour of blood, the colour of the heart, the colour of courage. The Emperor was astonished and agreed to remove Pilate from office.

In the mid twentieth century, gnostic writings were discovered, books that had been excluded from the canon of the New Testament. In some of these works, Mary Magdalene is shown as a visionary leader whom Jesus loved more than the other disciples.

There is even a Gospel devoted to her, The Gospel of Mary, which portrays Magdalene as being so close to Jesus that she receives secret teachings from him, teachings that he did not share with his other disciples because only Mary Magdalene was spiritually mature enough to understand them. We only have fragments from this Gospel, which is dated to the second century. It includes the following passage,
“Then Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brethren, Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will be entirely with you and will protect you. But rather, let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us and made us into Men. When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the Good, and they began to discuss the words of the Savior. Peter said to Mary, Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them. Mary answered and said, What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you. And she began to speak to them these words: I, she said, I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to Him, Lord I saw you today in a vision. He answered and said to me, Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of Me. For where the mind is there is the treasure.”

At the end of the Gospel, after Mary has told the disciples of Jesus' secret teachings, which describes the soul's progress through various spiritual levels, her authority is questioned by Andrew and Peter, who find it difficult to believe that Jesus preferred a woman to them.

Sadly, such misogyny is alive and well in our world today. Despite progress made in women's rights, women are still routinely disadvantaged and stereotyped. Worse, women are disproportionately exploited and abused, all around the world. May the courage of Mary Magdalene inspire us to stand up against these forces of patriarchal oppression, to call out injustice and work towards equality and freedom for all. May we encourage each other, for this is our work, as a religious community – to give each other the strength of heart to stand by our core and live from the centre.