If we view our year as an eight direction medicine wheel (with four cardinal directions of East, South, West, and North, and four cross-quarter directions: NE, SE, SW, NW), we might regard mid-January into early March as the “Northeast” time of year. The season is still harsh at times with the force of winter, and the animals and birds may be hungry. But at times too we experience hints of the green time soon to come.
In the Celtic Wheel Of The Year we have passed St. Brigit’s Day (celebrated these days on Feb. 1), also known as the earth festival Imbolc. This cross-quarter festival honors the quickening of the vital force in the germ of a seed nestled in the ground. In coming weeks, roots will wriggle downward, and a sprout curl upward, eventually to emerge from the soil. So too will buds unfurl on twigs and branches, and viriditas ~ the green spirit of life awaken all over the land.
The days and weeks past the winter holidays is the time to live your life like a poem ~ simple, quiet, just enough. The dreams and visions of the dark of the year give way to sketches, plans, designs. Even as the year resumes activity, we can still be playful as we begin to craft what this year holds, and it begins to craft us!
I invite you to muse upon your creative fire and vision at least one more time before the coming spring.
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