Becoming Seasonal

I unfolded my heart today and what I found there was Winter.

Art by me.

I worried I had lost my love of the garden.

For the four autumns and winters before this one I have been outside all day every day, digging, building, burning, planning, tending to Autumn-sown seedlings, craving the outside air in my lungs.

And this year, I notice, I have not.

Instead I’ve been tucked away in the quiet with a paintbrush or buried under a pile of papers studying Human Design or curled up under a blanket reading a book. Craving the warm air of the fire in my lungs.

I’ve also been seeking out the company of women and exploring the mysteries of intuition, ritual and the stars.

Long lunches with old friends.

A three-hour astrology reading; sessions with a medical inuitive, healing of old wounds to the heart.

My own weekly gathering of women unfolding their hearts with me (the precursor to next year’s opening of The Unfolding).

The releasing of the old with a burning of scribbled post-it notes at Samhain.

Glasses of wine in corners of dark restaurants shared with women where our friendship has lasted one, two or even three decades.

This is the dark soil.

This has been the richening of that so that the roots can grow stronger, deeper as the light starts to return.

I am not a machine. I no longer wish to continue being the same way every month, year after year. Performing like a shiny one day in day out.

I am not that.

I am woman.

By my nature, tied to the earth and the seasons. The cyclical, the changing, the responsive, the mysterious, the light and the dark.

The bleeding has stopped (I think, fingers crossed), but I feel more woman now than when it began, signifying the becoming of one.

And it is deeply gratifying.

To fill out one’s body, to own your bones and awaken to the sensousness of womanhood.

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“And I said to my body, softly, ‘I want to be your friend.’

It took a long breath and replied, ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.”

— Nayyirah Waheed

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Where have I been all these years?

In the pursuit of societally-recognised success, mainly. Hitting mega-goals, being the success story, proving myself, asking for recognition and approval, establishing my credibility in the eyes of the other. The production of more, the only way I knew I was on the right track - more clients, more revenue, more money in my own bank account. A relentless pursuit of consistency in an upwards direction, trying to improve myself as the way to keep on track with that. Because, obviously, as we are taught by all, is the point of it all.

(They don’t actually say that, they say the point of it all is love, but that doesn’t seems somehow counter to the priorities I am expected to have.)

During one of the curling up under a blanket moments I stumbled across Maureen Murdock’s writings: The Heroine’s Journey.. Just seeing this, and reading her words, suddenly it all falls into place.

From The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock.

And as the light slowly starts to return now; and after an experience of healing the wounded masculine, I’m now at the place of integrating the masculine and feminine.

And three things are here to be woven into my life now.

1. A structure to my calendar in 2025 that provides the support and framework into which flow and freedom can come. A weekly yoga class, a weekly dance class, a handful of workshops scattered loosely through the week hold my week together. In between those….space. So much space. No more 1:1 calls, at least not for now. Instead time to do what I will with all that time that I have. An ability to be present with my family, physically as well as mentally.

2. The re-footing of the relationships with my own daughters. They have struggled, I have tried to ‘fix’ them - trials and ogres there have been aplenty. For the past couple of months I have withdrawn even from them, to find my roots again. To have a strong back and soft belly. To be with them differently now. And a restructuring of the relationships with my son and husband too.

3. A re-allowing of men into my world. So much of my work has been with women, especially recently. But there are wonderful men who are showing up too, refusing to be put off by the mass of women they are surrounded by when they come into my programs. I want to open more to that.

I worried I had lost my love of the garden.

In truth she has taught me to be ever more in alignment with nature. She is ‘woman-ing’ me.

And now, as the sun slowly rises this morning, I go to place my hands back into her soil.