It has felt like an unusually long winter this year. Time has been stretching across the bones of the earth, holding us in her sleepy grip. Winter holds tightly, auspiciously, quietly. Protecting the fire within, so it can return again, come spring. The precious, bright spark dreaming deep below.

Hold me in the dream time, a little longer, I want to say. So that I may gather the courage and nourishment to come to the surface, and grow and reach for the Sun again.

But…it is time. Her time, and the earth begins to soften, the rivers thaw, which is a good thing that the cycle continues. Nobody is outside of the grip of time and Mother Nature’s rhythm.

As always, I lean towards the wisdom of my Polish Ancestors and their practices around the change of the seasons. As I listen to the singing birds and see the budding flowers, I know that it’s time to say “farewell” to winter and welcome spring. In Polish folk traditions the beginning of spring is celebrated as an awakening of the earth. The earth is seen as a living being, Mother Earth or Matka Ziemia in Polish, is treated with utmost respect and honor. Her natural cycles are acknowledged and nurtured, that of sleep and that of awakening. The life growing within the winter earth is protected as reflected in folk beliefs around not digging into the soil until spring when the surface softens and the earth is “open” again. Before that, we are not to disturb her sleep.

For the Polish people two Goddesses guard and represent the times of the earth and take turns in their presence above ground. One sleeps, one awakens. Together, they create balance and tend to the continuation of life. These Goddesses are Marzanna, the Lady of Winter, and Dziewanna, the Lady of Spring. They are so much more, but for now, we can hold them in their guardianship roles of the Winter and Spring seasons and their relationship of allowing the earth to awaken. In the spring, Marzanna opens the gates to the new life that is ready to grow and to Dziewanna. Interestingly, it is her role to hand the keys over and until she is ready to release spring, the earth remains cold. To align with Marzanna’s departure for the spring and summer seasons, a March rite of “Drowning Marzanna,” is observed. This practice is hundreds of years old and involves the creation of a Marzanna effigy and “drowning” her in a river or stream. The effigy is made of natural fibers and straw, carried through town while people are shouting and singing, then set on fire and tossed into the water. To the observer, this might feel cruel and strange, but if we take a closer look at the symbolism involved and the realm of the Goddess Marzanna herself, more is revealed.

Marzanna is associated with the winter earth but also with dreaming, sleep, and water. The word “Mara” is connected to the mare, nightmare or vision, the Polish word “marzyć” means to dream, to imagine. The connection of Marzanna and water is the connection to death and the afterlife. Water is a boundary between the living and the dead and it is believed that when a person dies, they cross a great river that leads to the Otherworld, which is also a place of rebirth. Marzanna being burned is a symbolism of transmutation and release, specifically of death and illness to a place from which there is no return. As the Goddess that would bring death in the winter, she also had the power to take it away, to return life in the spring. Since the water of the underworld is viewed as primordial and all healing, her being baptised in this water means she will come back again, after she finds her way to the land of the Ancestors.  The ceremony of Drowning Marzanna is meant to send away illness, disease and death as the winter was a season when people living in more natural conditions experienced more death, especially the elderly and small children. So, when she was carried through the town or village, on a high stick, so everybody could see her, taking all the illness, fears and diseases out, people would be shouting, yelling, singing loudly to make sure all the stagnation, grief and illness would be chased away.

As a child I experienced the Drowning of Marzanna ceremony and remember it clearly. I have to admit it didn’t hold some of the more dramatic elements of shouting and yelling, but still made quite an impression on me. The time spent making the effigy, walking in a group towards the river while singing, the tossing of Marzanna into the river and watching her float away. All of these elements are woven into a deep memory and knowing that “We released Winter to welcome Spring!”

Some sorrows, fears and experiences are beyond words. Our Ancestors knew this. With the seasons they moved in cycles of growing, holding and releasing. Allowing nature to take away what was too big for them to carry. More than ever I am longing for Marzanna’s gift of taking away the dark, the cold, and the terrifying. I want to shout and sing and lay my burdens at her feet. I want to watch them meet the fire and be lifted, be released and cleansed in the water. And as I long for it, I see it so. I know it’s time to stretch and move. To look at the sky and welcome the spring songs. And feel the stir of warmth inside that is ready for the Sun.

Happy Spring Equinox and Spring Season!

And, if you feel called to release from the grief of winter, perhaps a prayer I wrote to the Goddess Marzanna will be of service.

A devotional prayer to the Goddess Marzanna

Marzanna! Great Lady of Winter Cold

Fierce Protectress of the Light Below

Your time to rest has come

As our time to awaken has begun

We lay our burdens at your feet

We shout, we sing, we shake off our grief

Illusions, fears and sorrows lift

Our hearts release fresh waters as we weep

And you, Great Marzanna, witness us all

Our sorrows, heart aches and deep woes

You take all that is too big to carry

You tend to us when we are most weary

So to you we lift our song

As you take the wounds of winter storms

You do not fear as the sacred fire burns

And you become one with the waters of life’s return