New Moon: Commitment of Seeds to Soil

I am feeling the purifying heat of anger in this moment. Probably by the end of this writing it will be less, but perhaps it will be more—I do trust it will likely be different. I am practicing in myself that nervous system switch that occurs from an emotion riding me to riding an emotion. Riding a wave versus being pummeled by one. In the first, I feel the emotion has the reigns. I am at its mercy. I am the anger. There is no separation. The switch starts to flip when I am able to catch it, to notice where I feel the anger in my body, what is the sensation of it, not the story of it. Or maybe it is an anxiety that rides me, that I notice the same. Then, maybe a little later, I can ask myself who inside my complex of identities feels threatened? What value feels like it is being challenged? Most often for me, the answer lands mostly in my own behavior—that I am not living up to my own value of wholeness, of authenticity. My own ability or inability to respond to a situation that builds the prickly heat—the energy, or the coldness, the contraction—the holding of breath.

Today is the second day of Imbolc*.  A season for planting seeds, literally sowing our early Spring crops in the soil, but also for sowing our energetic seeds for Spring crops. If I don’t watch myself,  I will be sowing seeds of anger—rather than using the anger to discern what seeds DO want planting, and which, at this time, are ready for roasting or composting!

What do I like to eat? What do I like to see? These are practical questions we would ask ourselves when planning our garden. I love carrots and spinach, so yes please! Let’s have a lot of those. Radishes, well I could do a few, but I really only like them, maybe once a fortnight!

So what IS it that I like to eat? What do I like to see blooming in my front garden? What IS it exactly that is precious to me that I would like to reap harvest from in the Spring, in the Summer, in these Wheel’s Turnings that are in fact my verb of a life. What do I value that I want to take action around?

Do I like to eat anger inspired from power games? Nay! Is it the silence of people-pleasing where I am hedging my bets for a best outcome? No!  And while I am sure I am sowing some seeds of self-delusion, it sure would be nice to keep those to a minimum this year. Less noxious weeding, less fuel for Summer’s wildfires.

Do I like to eat the creative power that comes from tuning into the stillness of  my heart? Why, Yes, yes I do! Although sometimes it still scares the crap out of me.

Recently, I have had an especially heavy flow of indicators from the Universe that point, quite directly, to the utter, base need to follow my heart’s guidance—and my heart’s guidance only. And when I say my heart, I mean that part of me that is connected to Source. That perhaps IS Source. That is Beloved.  Whatever I am planting now, the Universe cries, please please plant it here. In your heart. Please stop wasting your time planting seeds in poor soil, in conditions that do not nurture them. You have done that, and you have learned, but your garden still only nourishes you half the time. Now is the time to plant in the Heart, She whispers, bonking me on the head with a scroll saying “Follow the Heart’s Way”

So this Imbolc, on the tails of this New Moon, this wander is about planting what is precious to you in the ground you consider the most fertile.

Journal about what it is that is most precious to you. What you value most. Be discerning also, because this is Not what you would LIKE to value the most. Not what you think would make you a better person if you valued it more. For example, part of me would like to say my highest values are the ones that fly on my flag of rainbow anthems outside where we live. And while those are true values, they are not the values that have kept me alive on this planet the last 38 years. My heart’s wildest longing is connection, which at this point in my life means being able to feel and hold the paradox of the grief of injustice and the ecstasy of living, the grief of the degradation of our planet and continued extinction of her most precious creatures with the ecstasy of sitting in Her waters, of feeling the divinity of mammalian connection with my son—because out of that paradox the creative waters of connection flow and THAT is what I, myself, value more than anything—that is the kind of wholeness I am trying to live in. That is what is most precious to me. 

Now your turn.

After you do the journaling part, find a way to embody planting what is most precious to you in the most fertile ground you have. I feel strongly that I cannot offer you what that is, because that is something only you know.

How do you plant what is most holy to you in the water, in the soil? How do you plant your own innocence in your heart? How do you plant the earth inside your heart. Plant your heart in the Earth. Embody it. Let your own imagination guide you. If you need help with ideas, or more likely with the courage to carry one of the ideas out, go out on the Land and ask for help. Or email me about what it is you want to plant and where, and we will brainstorm together. We’re in this together. Tending an Earthly Heart full of what is most precious to each of us.

*Imbolc is the name for the traditional Celtic Festival (Candlemas in Christian tradition) that honors the beginning of Spring, when the clock of the world wakes up. It marks the halfway point of our Solar journey between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. It is perhaps an ecologically truer New Year, as the Chinese calendar honors. This year Imbolc falls on the New Moon, and runs the February 1st-2nd.  In the US, February 1st is National Freedom Day—when the 13th Amendment was approved, freeing our enslaved siblings. This day was not recognized until 1949. Perhaps when we began to slowly "wake up" as a nation. The US also honors Groundhog Day on February 2—our enduring but sad nod to the deep processes at work through Mother Nature.