“I’m going out to clean the pasture spring
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.”
Robert Frost
I have been fortunate throughout my life to live near a spring house or a spring in a field where the water bubbles up from the ground. These are the kind of places that people make pilgrimages to throughout the world for their healing or regenerative powers.
The water element symbolically represents the emotional, creative and spiritual side of life and making a pilgrimage to one of these somewhat mystical sites can signal a new start in these areas of life.
New Years is not a particularly significant day in astrology for beginnings but the New Moon on Sunday is. As we move towards it there’s good timing to “rake the leaves away” and “watch the water clear” – in other words to clear vision for dreams and aspirations of the future.
It’s wise to think of providing protection for your aspirations, too, with safe boundaries – as the young calf depends on her mother.
One of the Sabian symbols for this time is “birds singing in the house singing happily.”
Sabian symbol from Lynda Hill