Christopher Croucher, Stormdancer

March 30th, 2025

“Come join in the dance of spring, to dance the earth into life again!”
—Will Rowan, The Dance of Spring, 2021

We are now past the Equinox, the marker of springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and while the weather patterns may be shifting and teasing and playing with our emotions a bit, we know that the Wheel is turning and we will be celebrating the Spring very soon. There is a powerful magic in that anticipation, the waiting that brings about a (hopefully) satisfying breakthrough as we finally enter the glorious time of Goldilocks-style “just right” days.

As a dancer and a witch, I’ve been pondering what it means to dance into this coming season, particularly in a year when dancing and celebrating might feel at odds with what’s going on around us. Will Rowan’s song The Dance of Spring, which we sing in a sacred circle dance every year at Rites of Spring in the EarthSpirit Community, has been wandering through my mind. It calls us to join in the dance to “dance the earth into life again.” We “stamp [our] feet and lock [our] hands and weave [our] song into the land.” As the community triple-steps in concentric rings in this traditional dance of Brittany called an An Dro, I like to picture the beating of our feet breaking open the soil that was recently frozen, planting our song and our community in the soil and allowing the potential of spring to break through into new growth.

This, in and of itself, is a magical act that can be reproduced individually or in community, and really in any season though it’s particularly perfect for Spring, by dancing, walking, and drumming on the land. It’s an intentional act of beating the ground to wake up potential. You’re knocking on the door to the Otherworld with your feet, raising magic from within the earth to imbue your intention with the driving force it needs to take root and grow. It’s a simple and elegant form of magic that needs nothing but a little bit of movement and your breath.

It is also worth noting that we sing this song and do this circle dance every year to begin our Community Web Ritual in which we weave a web of connection out into the world. This is where “dancing into spring” gets really interesting…

Eminent mycologist Paul Stamets has claimed a theory that mycelium, the networks of fungi that are now shown to support the foundations of life on Earth, may tend to grow where humans have celebrated. Studies have revealed that mycelia respond to music and low-level vibrations which suggests that the music, drumming, dancing and pounding feet on the ground in our Springtime revelries are stimulating the growth of this fungal network. Being that these interconnected roots support the growth and thriving of life on our planet, in our Dance of Spring we really are, quite literally, dancing the earth into life again while weaving a web of connection under the soil.

 So right now, what does it mean to dance into the Spring? Winters can feel harsh and isolating, as can the world in difficult times. Spring is often seen as the embodiment of the freedom that comes when the iron grip of Winter loosens. Right now, after what for many of us has felt like a particularly dark Winter, it may seem counterintuitive to celebrate the Spring when many of the metaphorical tendrils of ice continue to grip at us with little hope of relenting in the near future. These webs of connection that our Springtime magic weaves are a lifeline, a symbol that we are here for one another and for the world in whatever ways we can be as part of a Web that can support us all. In my personal magical belief, the magic that we make in that circle, dancing and singing and weaving the Web together, is a literal force in the world that is a power for blessing and change. I hope that, with all of these layers of Magic and science to show us how potent our celebrations really are, we can see this act of gathering and dancing and welcoming in the Spring as the powerful act blessing for the world that it really is and that we will joyfully “dance the earth into life again” very soon.

Stamets, Paul. (November 22, 2023). There are time honored traditions and celebrations [Post]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PaulStamets/videos/there-are-time-honored-traditions-and-celebrations-that-create-sounds-and-vibrat/1292344501263582/