seasons

If you follow my blog at all, you'll have seen that these past few months I have written less content but written a whole lot more poetry. This has been an unusual shift for me as I haven't consistently written poetry since I was in my early 20s.

I have been working with a spiritual director over these past few months and he has helped me to see how much the seasons affect me on so many levels.

I will no doubt write more about this as it starts to settle and make sense but from the autumn equinox through to the spring equinox I enter a season of 'wintering'. I suspect we all do to some degree but here in the UK where we have a deeply seasonal climate, during this past year with the impact of the COVID pandemic, and maybe just because I lean towards this more due to my personality - I feel like this past season of wintering has gone into my bones, and even in my soul.

Things I have learned from this season of wintering:

• I need to go slower - in my work, my pace, in my need for change. I also need a lot more rest and a lot more sleep.

• Less is more - less people, less opportunities, less 'stuff', less work

• Darkness is my friend (check out my post on The Good Darkness)

• Spirituality is earthier - I find divine presence in candlelight and the soil and in baking bread and standing in the rain)

• My work changes. I naturally seem to go inwards in the winter and become more introspective. I suspect this is why I have found a natural decline in coaching and content creation but an increase in poetry writing.

• I keep the circle small. Again, lockdown helped but I sense I'll need to grant myself permission to claim the need to keep the number of people in my world smaller again next time I'm wintering.

I can sense the shift into a new season, it's budding on the trees and pushing through the earth outside and in me. I can feel my energy changing and the flickers of creativity kicking back in. I have naturally started booking new clients and finding new work opportunities and am excited about what may be true for this next season.

And I have taken the conscious work on life-giving rhythms to a new level as I recognise the season shift I not only see outside my window but also within my own soul.

I'm curious if you can feel a similar shift in yourself as the seasons change?