On Saturday, March 20th, at 5:37 am, the Sun will move into Aries, commencing the vernal equinox, the long-awaited first day of spring.
Buckminster Fuller said, “I seem to be a verb.”
There is some very verdant verity embedded in these words, and in this time of year, when life becomes obvious again. As the green takes back over the scene, we might ask ourselves, where does spring begin within?
Where is the verifiable and veracious place inside from which we renew ourselves?
From his last written book, To Have Or to Be? psychologist and philosopher, Erich Fromm described two primary modes in which people orient themselves to the world: the “having mode” and the “being mode”.
The “having mode” is based upon possessing and owning, whereas the “being mode” is more about “aliveness” and “authentic relatedness to the world”.
He writes that modern society has become overly materialistic, and prefers “having” to “being”. He sees this leading to a loss of one’s inner self. An out-of-touchness with one’s own inner activity.
Of the two modes he writes,
“Having refers to things and things are fixed and describable. Being refers to experience, and human experience is in principle not describable.”
He asserts that in every mode of life, people should ponder more on the “being nature” and not towards the “having nature”.
“The mode of being has as its prerequisites, independence, freedom, and the presence of critical reason. Its fundamental characteristic is that of being active, not in the sense of outward activity, of busyness, but of inner activity, the productive use of our human powers.”
Happiness, from the having mode lies in “superiority over others”. From the being mode, it lies in “loving, sharing, giving.” This is the very verdant peace and naturalness of green. The ease on our eyes and in our hearts. No games, just truth. Just aliveness, in relating to the aliveness in others and the world, and not in some deadened status-charade.
Is this why the Ram’s horns turn inwards? Inwards to a place of verdant inner activity? Towards a true and vernal orientation? The place where “I” is a verb? Life is you, you are life?
Novelist Charlotte Perkin Gilman said “life is a verb not a noun.”
Some scientists now believe that life may have begun on Mars, symbolically the primordial verb.
A very verdant verb indeed. Verifiable in the vernal internalness.
Happy first day of Spring and as always, happy astro pondering!
Astro Art by Johnnie Day Durand.
Nature's Zodiac 
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