The term “rites of spring” comes from the French “sacre du printemps,” which more directly translates as “sacred spring.” There is something sacred about the coming of spring and the renewal of life that is evidenced in the flowers breaking through the hard ground of winter. The silent presence of new blossoms is not simply a call to stop and smell the flowers; but a message about something deeper and more essential.

Although the return of spring is part of the expected cycle of seasons, the mystery being enacted by nature is not a simple return to what was before. Rather, each occasion of springtime demonstrates life’s core mystery of birth, death and rebirth. Each spring is a renewal that is also a re-creation and a return of the original breath of creation.

In terms of mythology, creation is continuous and continually new as can be seen and felt each time we are truly present with nature. And because everything is secretly interconnected, the coming of springtime stirs something in our inner nature that also seeks to grow and change and blossom forth.

In Greek myth, Eros appears as one of the greatest images of the origins of life as well as the interconnectivity of everything on Earth. Eros first broke forth from the primordial cosmic egg much in the way that flowers break forth from the dark earth. Eros represents the divine energy of creation, the innate force of connection that seeks to create and procreate, to unite and combine one thing with another.

Eros is the secret glue that holds everything together, the spirit that must be present at the beginning of any new project, creative effort or relationship. Eros appears as the part of us that desires to connect, that longs to create and pay homage to whomever and whatever can be truly meaningful to us. Eros appears as the natural flow of longing and love within us that is also the evidence of the divine source of life trying to enter the world again through us.

Eros is present in all forms of love, in parental and fraternal love, in our love of nature and our soulful connections to all other beings. Eros connects us to the uniqueness in the other, whether it be a person, an animal, a place or a plant. Eros can transport us to another realm that is ever nearby, that can be both deeply sensate and highly spirited.

As the archetypal presence of connection and creation, Eros can be seen as the opposing energy to Thanatos, the god of death. In that sense, the more disconnected we are from our own sense of eros, the closer we are to the realm of death.

Eros is the power that connects and binds our souls with the living soul of the world. When we lose our felt sense of inner eros, we lose our natural connections to life, and can become as if dead to the world.

Like imagination, inner eros is a great power of the human soul. it appears in foods we can't resist, in the music that moves us, in the attractions that compel us. Eros appears wantonly in popular culture; but also in the most intimate human connections and in the soulful connections necessary to support all levels of social life. When the underlying energy of soul is absent, people can't feel or find meaningful connections to each other. Soon enough, everyone is turned against each other, thinking that the problem must come from that other person, when truly it lies in the disconnections within each divided person.

When the soulful sense of the eros connection is present in political life, leaders feel able to sacrifice their self-importance and ego needs for the benefit of the entire community. When the eros connection and genuine soul are not present, leaders become obsessed with power and dominance and become a threat to the community of souls they are intended to lead and protect. In that sense, the presence or absence of genuine eros continually reshapes history, one way or another.

Although it can manifest as raw unconsciousness and misguided aggression, the inner energy of eros intends to open pathways to greater consciousness, to a deeper sense of connection to our own souls and to the divine source of life trying to manifest through each of us. What truly calls to us has something divine in it. In that sense, we could say that the eros connection represents another calling in life.

Each person is called to awaken to the genius pattern woven in their soul and each also has a specific calling to connect to the living soul of the world as well. The sense of responding to the call of genius and the call of eros is deeply personal, but not simply a personal matter. When people fail to live the life of their soul, including their eros-connection, the world becomes diminished and the garden of life becomes polluted with the remains of unlived lives.

As they color the face of the earth with beauty, flowers also speak the abundant language of love passing through all levels of creation. Their message to us cannot be one of superficial or sentimental beauty, but more of an invitation for us to learn to draw life from the deep ground of our own being.

This is a spring like no other; one where we may have to remain more separated in order to find the most caring and healing ways to be together again. We are still living through the long, tragic season of the Coronavirus pandemic. And although the coming of spring may intensify the longing to return to familiar ways of life; the truth is that the world has completely changed.

We are being asked, not simply to find our way back; rather, we are being called to imagine the world anew and open to how our own souls might grow and blossom in greater ways that might contribute to the re-creation of life and the healing and renewal of the earth.