Shifting Towards Spring
Marking a midway moment, sparking a morsel of hope
Hey Friend,
How is your heart today? Thank you for being here, for reading.
We’ve experienced another week of chaos, uncertainty and tragedy in the world. Difficult collective news to hold and process. If you’re feeling tender and grief-filled, you are not alone. I see you.
Expressive writing can’t change what’s happening in the outer world, but this practice offers us a path to our inner wisdom, to our strength and maybe even some hope.
Right now, we’re at the midpoint between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. In the Celtic tradition, this moment is called Imbolc and honors the goddess Brigid, who represents renewal, fire and fertility.
Cultures from around the world have different kinds of rituals to remind us that even in the depths of winter, springtime will return.
In the Jewish tradition, we’ll celebrate Tu B’Shvat in a few weeks. The meaning and customs of Tu B’Shvat have evolved over time and now it’s a fun and festive a day to celebrate trees, our connections the natural world, the coming of spring, and the mystical dimensions of the world.
Are there particular midwinter rituals that nourish you?
Today’s creative prompt will meet you wherever you find yourself in this midway moment:
If you feel dark and wintery and like spring may never come;
If you’d like two more months of pure hibernation;
If you’re hoping that a creature from another galaxy might land next door and take you to its planet;
or if you just need a little nudge to remind you that everything on your to-do list can wait. You have permission to slow down and take a few moments to access your creative voice, that fire and energy that’s always inside you.
If you answered all of the above, I’m with you. Let’s write.
Writing Practice: Set aside 5-7 minutes for this practice. Write in a journal or open a ‘Journey with The Seasons’ document where you can return each Sunday.
Prompt: Here are two pieces of wisdom to inspire a little hope, renewal or other springtime energy. One is from Reb Nachman, a Hasidic rabbi who lived in the late 18th century, and the other is from poet and essayist Ross Gay, who writes powerfully about joy and sorrow.
Read them both and notice which one sparks your curiosity.
Write about anything that’s given you hope this week…a person, a moment, an animal companion, the beauty of the natural world.
Write about a way that you have cared for someone who is suffering or about the way someone has cared for you when you are/or have felt deep sorrow.
I would love to read your expressions. Feel free to comment below or use the messaging app to reach me.
Spiritual Practice for the week ahead: Reach out to someone you’re thinking of at least once during the week. When you struggle with feelings of sorrow, write about it. Look for signs of spring in the natural world, like noticing how daylight is increasing.
Wishing you a week with moments of spring coming to life inside of you! With love, Gabrielle Ariella
PS: Have a friend who might appreciate today’s prompt/practice? Invite them along!
Karen, thank you for this beautiful, vulnerable, powerful reflection. So many of us are in touch with sorrow and my hope is we can meet each other here and grow in compassion. I’m so grateful you’re here and that this writing practice has been supportive! ❤️
I experienced my deepest suffering in the wake of my divorce. It wasn’t just the end of my marriage, it was the end of a particular kind of life I had been building towards for about “ten-to-my-entire-existence-years.” So, not only did I find myself without a husband and co-parent for our daughter, I found myself without a home, without a job, without a role as a wife, a worker, a functioning human being in this society that tells us we are what we do (professionally and expectedly). It felt like being violently ripped out of the womb and forced into something I did not ask for and could never have imagined. Here is who saved me:
1. My mother. Who fed me when I couldn’t feed myself, just like when I was a baby.
2. My father. Who kept a roof over my head and told me without words that I belonged under it, just like when I was a baby.
3. My daughter. Because she made me laugh and hope. And because motherhood was the one role left me, and I leaned into it with whatever I had.
4. My sisters, raised with and chosen. Who, when my back was breaking under the psychic and emotional load, silently slipped their arms around my waist and lent their shoulders and their time to the lifting of the burden.
5. This writing group. That helped me find my voice, but it wasn’t the old voice, it was a new voice, growing stronger and more curious and comfortable each time it shared or something was shared with it. A voice reaching, tentatively at first, toward new worlds of possibility and new ways of being.
And now I know, I am what I do, but, repeatedly (in the style of Aristotle). In the manner I show up, in the content of my character and the living of my values - and no change in practical circumstances can rob me of it.