The Temple of Being

 

By Abbie Coombs for Sowvital.

 

In the hurried pulse of contemporary life, calendars bloated like overripe clouds, lists snaking longer than country lanes, doing has become our dominant language. We tally worth in tasks ticked off with grim satisfaction, hours crammed edge to edge, profiles burnished for fleeting likes; presence fades like mist under noon sun, eclipsed by productivity's relentless glare. Rarely do we carve out moments where nothing is required. No fixing fractures, no striving for summit, no performance for phantom applause. Just being, plain as primrose on a bank.

 

And yet, this pause is no barren void, no indulgence for the idle. It is rich earth, the deep loam from which truer actions take root. Clearer in their purpose, kinder in their unfolding, more tender than any frenzy-born effort. Being is the unseen root system, the softer pulse beneath visible bloom, feeding what rises into light. When we grant ourselves even brief pockets of the undirected awareness of being (a bird's call held without hurry, the weight of a cup warming our palms), the doing that follows carries a different quality, less jagged, more like the steady rise of sap through March branches just beginning to green.

The Bridge Between ‘Being’ and ‘Doing’

 

Temples have long served the purpose of ‘being’ across centuries and cultures. Not merely as sites for ritual, but as sanctuaries where people gathered to step outside daily striving into reverence, silence, and soul-deep listening. In ancient Egypt's Karnak or Luxor, vast halls fell hushed as sunlight slanted through columns, allowing pilgrims to stand in awe before eternity's echo, questions of life rising unbidden. Greek temples like the Parthenon held spaces for quiet reflection amid marble calm, where oracles whispered and citizens sought inner counsel beyond civic clamour. Hindu and Buddhist complexes, Angkor Wat's carved labyrinths, Ajanta's rock-hewn caves, drew devotees for meditative stillness where silence amplified the divine, fostering introspection amid intricate beauty. Sumerian ziggurats and Roman pantheons alike created domains of pause, heightening awe through wordless submission to something vast and timeless. These were places to be, in reverence's hold, silence's cradle, soul's unhurried questions, far from the marketplace's din or field's toil.

This thread still persists today. A temple becomes the living bridge between opposites, delicate as cherry petal caught on March wind. Picture it unfolding: any space where doing softens its command, allowing being to rise like mist from thawing soil. A corner freshly cleared for spring, its shelf holding one vase of foraged primroses nodding in breeze, armchair by sunlit pane where time unravels; a path beneath hazels where catkins dangle like earrings of gold; the simple, startling weight of your own body when you pause to feel it truly.  These are temples where doing dissolves into being's gaze, when the inner question turns from:

 

What must I achieve here? to What is here, now, alive?

 

 

Mother Nature’s Temple

 

Mother Nature offers the clearest model of this balance, her woods, fields, and shorelines showing us how to simply be without agenda or expectation. Walk into an April bluebell wood where the violet haze pools around your ankles, carrying that honeyed earth scent through the dusk air. Or stand on a headland as light turns gold along the horizon, sea meeting sky in endless curve. Before your mind catches up, your body responds through your five senses, connecting you intricately with the living world around you.

 

Your breath naturally deepens, filling lungs that have been clenched for months. Shoulders drop toward the earth, releasing the weight of unseen burdens. An older rhythm stirs in your bones. She asks nothing of you: no tasks to complete, no proof of worth to offer. The walk itself becomes an act of simple touch. The feel of ground underfoot or wind against skin in a moment of utter presence.

 

This sensory connection reveals the bridge within ourselves: the bodies we inhabit are temples too. Just as nature receives the world through root and leaf, pore and tendril, so too do we through our 5 senses. When we fully sense her, eyes open, ears tuned, hands reaching, we sense our own wild inner landscape coming alive. The land listens back without judgment, teaching us to inhabit our bodies as sacred spaces that are grounded, alive, present.

 

Right now, at the Equinox, she models the cleanse: winds scour coves clean to their pebbled shine, rains flush soil dark and fertile, deadwood breaks down into mulch for the crocus pushing through. We can mirror this simply: sweeping our homes clear, oiling our skin tender, connecting with our breath. In this way we reclaim the temples where doing flows from being, as natural as petals loosened on spring wind. Mother Nature does not perform or produce. She simply is: inviting us to meet her there, embodied and at ease.

Spring Equinox Ritual: Balancing the Threshold (20 March)

 

The Spring Equinox arrives as cosmic fulcrum. Day and night in perfect parity, light and shadow shoulder to shoulder. A moment of poised equilibrium inviting us to cleanse and realign our own inner thresholds.

 

INGREDIENTS

 

• Quiet space: windowsill, garden corner, or woodland edge

• Bowl of saltwater (sea water or local salt dissolved in rainwater)

• White candle (for clarity and transformation)

• Foraged spring elements: primrose cluster, hazel twig with catkins, fallen cherry petal

• Paper and pencil

• Rosemary bundle (for clearing)

 

 

RITUAL STEPS

 

1. Prepare and Cleanse: We start with doing. Clear your space thoroughly, sweep away winter dust, open windows to let in fresh equinox air. Set up a simple altar circle: saltwater bowl to the east (for emotional release), candle to the south (for change), rosemary to the north (for grounding), hazel twig in the centre (representing balance between doing and being). Add primrose and cherry petals around the edges.

2. Ground Yourself: We balance doing and being. Sit comfortably with bare feet flat on the floor. Breathe evenly, in for 4 counts (think of doing's steady energy), and out for 4 counts (think of being's calm presence). Say aloud one doing activity that grounds you (like your daily work rhythm or sweeping the floor) and one being moment that centres you (like drinking morning coffee in silence or watching a bird on a branch). Hold them as equals, like day balancing night.

3. Write Your Intentions: We release and welcome. Fold the paper in half. On the left side, list what you want to release from winter (habits that trap you in constant doing, doubts blocking presence, patterns of rush). On the right side, list what to welcome in spring (daily pauses amid tasks, freer breathing, grounded presence supporting action). Fold the paper along the centre line to seal the balance.

4. Work the Elements: We shift the energy. Dip one corner of the paper in saltwater (water releases the old), pass it near the candle flame through rosemary smoke (fire and air transform tension), then sprinkle with a pinch of soil or salt (earth grounds the new balance). Say quietly: Doing and being in balance, I release and reclaim.

5. Complete the Ritual: We seal with nature. Take the foraged spring elements outside. Dig a small hole, place the folded paper inside, and cover it. Mark the spot with primrose or cherry petals. 

 

Full Pink Moon Ritual: Returning to Being (2nd April)

 

Two weeks after the equinox, the Pink Moon calls you back to where you planted your balance. This ritual has no fire or water, just your senses and presence, completing the circle from doing to being. Return to witness what you've released take root.

 

INGREDIENTS

 

• Return to the equinox burial spot 

• A small stone from nature 

• A journal and pencil 

• Your presence

RITUAL STEPS

 

1. Return and Settle: Walk back to the equinox spot under the Pink Moon's light. Sit comfortably nearby. Let this be pure being, not doing. Think about the paper softening into earth. Breathe steadily, in for 4, out for 4.

2. Ground Through Doing's Echo: Pause for one minute. Silently name the doing you released at equinox, and the being you invited. Feel how they've settled into balance over these weeks. 

3. Sense the Present: Close your eyes briefly, then open to being fully here. Tune each sense one by one.

• Sight: Scan your environment slowly (moon glow on leaves, twig's new shoots, petal shadows shifting, distant horizon curve)

• Sound: Close your eyes and listen deeply (night wind rustle, owl call or cricket hum, your own breath steady)

• Touch: Feel the ground beneath with your palms (cool earth, damp grass, smooth stone), air on skin, hands resting open.

• Smell: Inhale night's bouquet (damp soil, spring green unfurling, faint wildflower or rain memory)

• Taste: Part the lips slightly and connect with how the air tastes (faint mineral trace of earth, subtle green sharpness from nearby leaves).

4. Hold the Balance: Sit for 10-20 minutes in silence. Let your senses anchor you between doing (the walk here) and being (this moment's fullness). If thoughts of tasks arise, let them drift like clouds.

5. Close Gently: Write down any thoughts you had during your meditation. Pick up your stone, hold it, and feel its weight/texture as reminder of the act of being. Keep it in your pocket or purse, returning to it in moments of doing, to keep you anchored.

 

Photography: Abbie Coombs