Your Longing is Counter-cultural~ Welcome Home

A month ago, on February 1st, I received a spate of posts and emails celebrating Imbolc, a time when new shoots of life begin to emerge from beneath the surface.

But I wasn’t resonating with that time within myself. And neither were the snowdrops in my garden, who seem a more reliable indicator than the solar calendar of when Imbolc is happening.

I'm only now beginning to tentatively emerge from a long dark underground spell of soul searching. I’ve been in a pretty bleak place in recent months, maybe actually for a year or so, maybe longer.

This has felt like a Dark Night of the Soul, in which I’ve been pretty sick and tired of myself, along with many other things. I lost touch with any sense of faith, or knowing what I could believe in. And it was clear that I couldn’t make myself believe in anything. And so, I felt uncertain about what to commit to, or what to do next.

I was beyond trying to craft a positive mindset. My sense of active hope had upped and left me sitting among the ruins of erstwhile sandcastles in the air.

I also found that the response to what I've been offering these last few years has mostly felt like tumbleweed rolling across a landscape of deathly silence.

Maybe it's because I didn’t fully trust in what I was doing?

As best I could, I’ve rested in stillness and silence, awaiting an epiphany, or some kind of sign of my next steps. A dear woman I shared these thoughts with recently reminded me that I’ve sown seeds which are ‘pushing out their roots and anchoring themselves in dark earth, way before any sign of growth is visible above ground’. Yes, I have sown seeds and I know that some take longer to germinate than others. And perhaps they only do so when all the conditions are right for them?