Beginning the Slow Transition from Winter
This week marked Imbolc, the Celtic festival at the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s a time of appreciation for the returning light, fire, life force and new beginnings. It marks the start of lambing season and the stirrings of new life as the days slowly start to lengthen.
The original word Imbolg means ‘in the belly’. All is pregnant and expectant — and only just visible if at all, like the gentle curve of a ‘just-showing’ pregnancy. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, of earth awakening and life-force stirring. Here is hope. We welcome the growth of the returning light and witness Life’s insatiable appetite for rebirth.
This is a new celebration for me. As my own practice of cyclical living deepens, I find more and more nuance in the rhythms of my body and the world. The more I pay attention to my cycles, the more shades of grey I see, the more I can transition smoothly between each phase. It’s like the difference between driving a car pressing the accelerator and brake all the way down respectively — stop-start — and being able to ease off the accelerator and gently press the brake to slow down.
Sorry, little tangent there — I’m excited that I continue to find new aspects of cyclical wisdom even after several years of study and practice.
So what might this time of year mean for you and how might you transition into spring more smoothly?
You might be noticing the stirrings of life and ideas within you. Perhaps a subtle desire to be doing more, to start creating, alongside a desire for rest and slowness. You might be feeling a combination of tiredness and lethargy with restlessness or agitation.
My suggestion is to tread gently here. You might start to plant some seeds, literally or metaphorically, that you hope will bud and sprout over the course of the year. And just like for germinating seeds, there is still a need for darkness and stillness — a seed won’t grow if you keep digging it up.
This is a great time to start to dream and visualise what you would like to create this year. Allow yourself the time to daydream without demanding action of yourself.
Ask yourself what you need right now, deep down in your bones? I don’t know what’s best for you only you do. As my mentor, Rachel Blackman, so eloquently writes “These seasonal markers and metaphors don’t imply how you should be feeling, or how you should be acting. Rather they are reference points against which we can experience our living processes… conditions of living against which we can enquire into what is most resonant for us in this moment. If we can learn to be more awake to these shifts, and listen to ourselves, we can make more informed choices.” (You’ll also find a suggestion for a simple ritual there too)For me, I’m noticing those stirrings.
After a beautiful mini-retreat last week to uncover the Winter Wisdom, I can feel how much my body still wants to go slow, even as my mind is starting to demand action. I can start to see some of what I want to create this. I am clear that I want to create from my heart — there is something in me that wants to be birthed this year — and I know the best way to stay to connected to my heart and my soul is to move slowly. So I plan to still have plenty of rest, to (try) not to overload my schedule and allow myself to feel.
This poem sums it all up beautifully for me, and you might like to take some time this week with this playlist to contemplate it and allow yourself to daydream.
“Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring.
The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the
eye; everything seems severe and edged. Winter is the oldest season; it
has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the
miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds
are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return.Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bug opens and the symphony of
renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a
miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.
The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared.
Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat
always inching its way forward;
change remains faithful to itself until
the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is
abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is
there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.”
~ John O’Donohue
Remember, this is the very beginning of a transition out of winter. There is no rush. For those of you like me — perfectionist overachievers — you cannot take this too slowly. You will not get stuck here. This time, too, has as much richness and value as the summers and the times of doing. Honour yourself and trust that things will unfold in their own sweet time — a bud cannot be peeled open into full bloom. This is the work.
This post was originally published at www.thepracticalbalance.com on 2 February 2021
