We had news here that the palm trees along the Esplanade were being removed by the council, apparently because they've grown too big. Local people are rightly outraged, because the trees are not very big and have not caused any damage to the Esplanade. Palm trees are an ancient symbol of long life, strength and fertility. They are sacred to many pagan religions, as well as being part of the Christian mythos. On Palm Sunday there will be a service at the Holy Trinity church, followed by a procession with donkeys from the church to the Esplanade.  Palm trees are not native to Britain, but during the Middle Ages, palm fronds would be collected by pilgrims on their travels to Palestine. British people would often make do with other types of plants that are native to Britain to symbolise the fertility of spring and the triumph of life over death. During the first century CE, when the Roman Empire included what was then known as Syria-Palestina, there was recorded the passionate worship ...

   Everytime I go outside I see new flowers popping up where there weren't any before. It's so exciting! Every day it seems to get a little bit milder, and the evenings draw out for a little bit longer. I love coming home from work while the sun is still up! I go down to the beach to catch the last rays and marvel at the variety of sunsets each evening provides. The twilight hours are so magical, the birds give their last song of the day, and the foxes sneak from garden to garden. Each evening is a little bit brighter than the last. It won't be long until I'm lying on the warm golden sand, basking in the evening sun of summer. We are approaching Spring Equinox, one of my favourite times of year! It is especially fun because of all the cute decorations. I already found an Easter Tree to decorate. It's a tradition from Sweden, and is found in many Germanic-speaking countries. Another thing Germanic-speaking countries tend to have in common is the use of the word Ea...

I know it's only January, but I am eager for spring right now. I work in fashion retail, so all the spring lines are coming in now. Bright pinks, greens, blue and coral in floral patterns adorn the shop floor, while the January sale gets rid of the old winter wardrobe. I have to wear whatever's on the shop floor, so that means I'm sporting spring wear despite the cold. We are in the midst of the coldest time of year in Britain, and I am hoping for a sprinkle of snow at some point, but 2014 was the warmest year since records began, so I'm not gonna get my hopes up. I have noticed lots of green shoots coming out of the cold wet ground, and they look like early daffodils. Well, as soon as I see crocuses in bloom, I'll know it's definitely spring. In the olden days, February was actually considered the beginning of spring, and until the 17th century, this was formally celebrated with Candlemas on the 2nd of February. Candlemas is the Christian festival of...

We are currently in the lunar month of goddess Rheda, and the Spring Equinox is drawing near. The next lunar month is that of goddess Eostre, also known as Ostara. For this reason, many pagans celebrate the Spring Equinox as the festival of Ostara. Who is this mystery goddess? It was the 8th century historian Saint Bede who made written record of this Anglo-Saxon deity. He claimed that the Christian festival of Christ's resurrection became known as Easter because it falls on the first Sunday after Eostre's full moon. Her name is ultimately related to the word east , which comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for "shine" or "dawn". Therefore, we assume that Eostre is a goddess of the dawn, and the increasing sunlight which follows the Spring Equinox. There are several places in England which may have been named after the goddess, such as Eastry in Kent, Eastrea in Cambridgeshire, and Eastrington in Yorkshire. Jacob Grimm theorised that her Old Germa...

A new lunar month is upon us! This is what the Anglo-Saxons called Hrēþ-mōnaþ, the moon of the goddess Hretha, also known as Rheda. Although we have next to nothing to base our ideas on, just like the goddess Ostara, we can guess as to her role. Some have suggested that she could have been a warrior goddess, who fights away the darkness of winter, in order for the spring equinox to triumph. The Romans named this month after the warrior god Mars. March was considered the first month of the Roman calendar year, until perhaps as late as 153 BCE. England later adopted the 25th March as their New Year, until reverting back to 1st January in 1752. Another name for this month is Lentmonat , meaning the month of "spring" or "lengthening of days". This is where we get the term "Lent" from, as a spring period during which food is sparse. In England a common feature of this month is the blossoming of daffodils, which spend most of the year dormant beneath the E...

January 2014 has been pretty special because we've begun with a super new moon, then we had a micro full moon, and as the month draws to a close we have another super new moon. "Super" means the moon is especially close to the Earth, and "micro" means it is especially far away from the Earth. If you imagine the moon travelling around the Earth, it doesn't travel in a perfect circle, and it doesn't travel at a consistent speed either. So, sometimes it goes round closer and faster, other times it goes round slower and further away. That's why the current lunar month is 29 days, 10 hours, and 24 minutes, but the next lunar month will be 29 days, 10 hours, and 21 minutes long, and the duration of the lunar months continue to vary throughout the year. In preshistoric times, looking at the moon was one of the easiest way to track the passing of time. Some cultures measured the start of a lunar month to be the new moon, others thought of the first cr...