This week we can dive headlong into Spring as we follow the waxing crescent moon across the sky, meeting first with Pleiades on Monday night, and then at week's end moving through the region of the sky where we find Cancer and Leo, and the bright planet Jupiter.
This time of year, when we're in the first full week of Spring, it calls to mind the story from the Russian tradition of "the Snow Maiden", also known as "Snegorotchka." The story is that there is an older couple that has lived a long and happy life, though somewhat melancholy because they have never had a child of their own.
But then, lo! one Winter, they build a snow maiden out of the snow, who actually takes on a human life. The snow maiden lives happily with them throughout the Winter months, but then with the return of the Spring, she melts away, just as the receding snow line moves through our area in this season.
This story is beautifully told by Edmund du Lac, and it's worth reading one full paragraph here that beautifully describes the onset of Spring, as we all get ready for it ourselves:
And now the Winter months moved on. With slow and steady stride they went from mountain top to mountain top, around the circle of the sky-line. The Earth began to clothe itself in green. The great trees, holding out their naked arms like huge babies waiting to be dressed, were getting greener and greener, and last year's birds sat in their branches singing this year's songs. The early flowers shed their perfume on the breeze, and now and then a waft of warm air, straying from its summer haunts, caressed the cheek and breathed a glowing promise in the ear. The forests and the fields were stirring. A beautiful spirit brooded over the face of nature;~Spring was trembling on the leash and tugging to be free...
So as you watch the Moon getting bigger and bigger this week, you can imagine it as Spring, tugging to be freed from the snow across the land.
Snogorotchka -The Snow Maiden
