Welcome Spring. The vernal equinox. Ostara. The season of Earth's regeneration. Of birth and rebirth - eggs and ducklings and baby bunnies. Emergence, expansion, the drive to move forward on the visions begun in winter's dreaming. Air charged with newness, fresh and exciting, bidding life to shake off the cloak of winter and step forth into a renewed world.
It's all daffodils and cherry blossoms and birdsong and sudden spring showers outside. A time we might meditate on questions like: Who am I becoming in this moment? What is awakening within me right now? What wisdom might I bring forth from the dark of winter?
Normally this time of year has my spirit singing and inspiration flowing and creativity blooming. If that's happening for you, amazing, congrats, and enjoy! You deserve it. You've made it through another winter - it's time to unfurl a bit, to feel some ease. To join the world in its awakening, its hopeful and brave act of putting tender blossoms out into potentially still hazardous weather.
But if winter seems to be lingering in your being this year, keeping you a little slower, a little down, more tired, you're certainly not alone either. Sometimes the world is just moving a little too fast for our own internal pace. Sometimes current events unearth trauma in a paralyzing or debilitating fashion, holding us up more than a little.
Tuning into the wheel of the year is often normalizing, and gives a point of reference for energy levels amid the cycles of blooming and fruiting, decay and hibernation. But it's inevitable that sometimes our inner cycles don't align exactly with the outer unfoldings of the natural world. And these moments can stir frustration, or shame (if you've ever been depressed at the peak of summer, you might know this one), or self-loathing, or "what the heck is wrong with me??".
These are moments for grace. For self-compassion. For giving ourselves a break, and recognizing that exactly where we are is just fine, is enough. There is always some sort of change happening, even when the thaw is subtle, or happening underground.
Small, simple practices of mindfulness are still worthwhile - like taking a moment to pause and really hear the morning songbird, really see the sudden ray of sunshine through the cloud, actually smell the opening blossoms. We don't do these things to "feel better" - that may or may not happen and we really have no control over it. Feelings are transient, changeable things, weather across the skies of our being.
We witness the change of season, the moments that grab us, because engaging with the world around is imperative to our wellness. These moments of being impacted by the natural world, being in relationship with it, embed ourselves as a vital and integral part of the landscape, the ecosystem, the wider-than-human community. In these moments we Belong. We are embodied. We see.
So here's to the moments. Moments of light and free and ease and joyful possibility. Moments of challenge and discomfort, sorrow and pain. We need 'em all. And none last forever.