Imbolc is a Cross Quarter celebration - midway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox; widely celebrated on February 1st each year, although in 2024 the astrologically-derived date is Feb 4 or 5. But at its heart, it tells us we are at the beginning of the beginning of Spring and invites us to take note of the subtle shifts which herald a larger transition, the tension of opposites and contradictions which exist uncomfortably side by side in any threshold. “Use this time to close and prepare, change is happening.”
I’ve been speaking a lot recently about transitions and integrations as I continue to metabolize my massively expansive experience of a four-month pilgrimage and stay open to what feels like big changes coming. And in this bonus episode, I continue that: using this nature-based celebratory marker and deep-lineage tradition to remind me (and you) that there is nothing in nature which moves abruptly from one thing to another and that sometimes we just need to be ‘in retrograde’ ourselves.
After all, we are each innately and unavoidably the meeting point of innumerable threads of what has been, what is, what could be, and what will be. And to be alive, wholly and fully alive, is to dance back and forth between those. The trajectory of a journey isn’t linear.
Case and point? This episode: which is still working me, even after I finished recording, and which is just one snapshot of an understanding which has continued to grow since yesterday. Heraclitus wasn’t lying when he said we can never step in the same river twice.
So, if you’re at a threshold and finding yourself annoyed, discouraged, frustrated, disheartened, flailing, “back where you started”, and generally “failing to move forward”, “get on with it”, etc… join me around the fire.
We’ll be messy and find proof that we’re designed to be so, together.
And I'd love to keep hearing from you: Did this shift anything for you in your perspective or relationship with a threshold or transition you’re navigating right now? How are you noticing or honoring the gradual shift from Winter to Spring?
May we remember that just enough tension on the warp threads, the underlying architecture of our own selves, allows us to weave new beauty. May we remember the aesthetic pleasure of irregular rhythms, trustworthy not in their linearity but in their roving cycles. May we look to Nature, not to reinforce what we think we know, but to be eldered and continually taught of the perfection of complex designs. May we not make too comfortable a home in either where we’ve been or where we hope to go, but rather recognize each moment as arrival-pause-and-departure. May we hold our own seasons of retrograde with as much honor, reverence, curiosity, wonder, and fiercely accountable compassion as we do our direct lines. And may we hold steady in our courage and willingness to be unmade and reshaped again and again by the life unfurling beneath our feet.
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You can find Kate:
Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com
Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com
Instagram: @wildsacredjourney_kp
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