Vernal Equinox

on cycles & (dis)connection

At this time (3.07am GMT), we are experiencing the vernal equinox in Scotland. And in this - a free post - I’m telling you why my substack is named after this point in the year; the point of balance on an axial tilt. It’s a lot to do with balance, and a little to do with opposition and distance. And a lot to do with embracing the in-betweens.

The word ‘equinox’ is derived from the Latin aequus ‘equal’ and nox ‘night’ and marks a time when day and night are approximately the same length. For this reason, it represents balance. It also symbolises transition as the world moves from summer to autumn or winter to spring. It symbolises the ongoing cycle of life.

So, what follows is a reflection on the power of the equinox metaphor. A metaphor of movement and a metaphor of (dis)connect. I want to talk to you about the role that cyclical metaphors play in my life and writing. How it factors into all of this (gestures at stacks of notebooks and drafted Substack posts).

I know we’ll be inundated with equinox and spring content at the moment! We writers do love a seasonal turn. But I hope this offers something a little different. It’s not all turning to the light; I’m often somewhere in the in-between, where dark still lingers in a new moon’s shadow. So, please do hang on til the end of this one — and let’s talk about it.

Connect

One of my main hopes when I started writing about bereavement was to write and articulate the importance of understanding grief as something cyclical rather than linear. Too often, we are expected to journey down a grieving ‘process’ with a distinct beginning, middle and end. I was told about this progressive line when, aged thirteen, my little brother died.

Well-meaning school guidance teachers and rookie counsellors taught me about it. They told me ‘it would get better’, ‘easier’.

To stretch and flatten the complexity of sibling loss into a linear journey that I would tread (alongside the chaos of puberty) seems utterly ridiculous when I look back on it. I’m now nineteen years down that path and - let me tell you - nothing about it has been linear. The predetermined stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - can be experienced in any day, in any hour. They co-exist, mingle, scream for attention. There’s joy too. The moments of joy that catch like splinters in grief are such pure, sharp moments of joy. Then there’s the guilt for leaning into the joy.

I’ve touched on the affect of experiencing a death that is intrinsically linked to the seasons in a previous post. My brother died in the snow, and so I see no other way for me to experience his grief other than seasonally, cyclically. My lows are linked to the wintering of the earth, and then we have spring bringing light and new life from those fallow days.

But it isn’t all crocuses and lambs and daffodils. The careless obsession with new life this earth shows can be so jarring and hurtful to those of us who have lost a life close to us. And global warming is making that more complex; I’m finding daffodils when there should be snow. Tulips that start to emerge too early, only to be caught in a snap of late frost in the swan song of winter.

So instead of linear paths I turn to cycles; the innate understanding that all that lives must die and all that dies brings life. Even these effervescent spring flowers merely blink in the light before giving way to mulch and rot that nourishes the earth for the rest of the year.

After so many years of thinking like this, I do wonder if this feels really negative. But then I remember what comfort this understanding has brought me.

And this is why I find the metaphor of the equinox so comforting and connecting. Not simply because it affords us a chance to think on renewal and rebirth. It is a reminder that everything is temporary and everything does, and must, keep moving. Difficult and negative feelings are a necessary part of things and they can - and will - come back. Understanding this takes the pressure out of them. It makes it less jarring when they do come back. And it makes us less reliant on sorely seeking out the positives and the light.

Disconnect

The equinox also reminds me of things that exist in oppositional forces. Autumn and spring equinox events remain opposite and never cross over. As the Northern Hemisphere experiences its autumn equinox, the Southern Hemisphere experiences a spring equinox.

They cycle the same journey but never meet. I’ve never encountered a more poignant metaphor for how it feels to be a grieving person. Death gives us commonality but we can never truly experience it in the same way.

My manuscript takes this as the core inspiration for the conflict between a mother and daughter character. Each must learn to relinquish control over the other’s experience. They must disconnect in order to create enough space that each can circle loss in their own way, on their own axis.

In-between

I love this painting by Paul Nash. There is light and dark - yes. But they’re not entirely equal. This is a landscape in process. It’s shifting beyond the equinox moment. The composition is cut diagonally to give us the uncanny feeling of being in-between things. We instinctively know this is a fleeting, passing moment. Nothing is forever.

The equinox may be seen as liminal as it marks a point of transition, existing in the space between spring and winter, light and dark. It is an intensely liminal space that has both fascinated and perplexed me as I write about grief.

This, to me, is the power of the equinox. It’s never really about equilibrium. It’s about knowing the axis shifts and we fall into an unknown space before we settle into what comes next.

From here, we can better understand the (dis)connection it affords us.

K x