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For waking what was planted in the dark

Breaking Ground

  1. 1 Find a threshold between inside and outside. A doorway, a window, the edge of a porch. Stand where you can feel both.
  2. 2 Hold something that represents what you've been tending. A seed, a written word, a stone you've carried. It doesn't need to be literal—only true.
  3. 3 Name what you buried. The hope, the intention, the quiet work. Say it aloud: I planted this in the dark. I tended it without seeing.
  4. 4 Step outside. Or open the window. Let air touch your face. The balance tips now—more light than dark from here forward.
  5. 5 Place or plant what you're holding. In soil, on an altar, in your pocket for the season. It has emerged. So have you.
✦ Hedgewitch Almanac

Breaking Ground

Ostara is the pivot. Equal light, equal dark—and then the scale tips. From here forward, the sun gains ground. What was buried rises. What was waiting arrives.

The word comes from Ēostre, a Germanic goddess of dawn and spring. Her symbols—eggs, hares, flowers—survived into modern Easter, though their older roots run deeper. She is the one who opens the door.

In folk practice, the equinox is a time for balance work: clearing what's stagnant, planting what you want to grow, walking the line between what was and what comes. The seed doesn't wonder if it's ready. When the conditions are right, it breaks ground.

Correspondences

Materials
Seeds, eggs, soil, green cloth
Plants
Crocus, daffodil, violet, pussy willow
Moon
First quarter (building)
Time
Dawn, or the moment of equinox
Direction
East

I have tended in the dark.
I have waited without seeing.
Now the light and dark stand equal,
and I stand at the door between them.
What I planted, I call forward.
What I carried, I set down.
The ground opens. I open with it.
I am ready to be seen.

Your intention: