The cycles that find us letting go before Imbolc
I’ve been walking the lanes quite a bit recently and yesterday I really noticed the change in light, which I find super exciting. The sun is higher in the sky and it changes everything, the shadows fall differently, and nature looks greener, more vibrant.
What struck me the most though was the cycles. I’ve been following the turning of the wheel for a good few years now, so too the moon cycle and my menstrual cycle, and it’s only now though, that I truly feel the different energetic shifts as the sun cycles and we greet each new turning point.
It’s Imbolc next week and there is a real sense of letting go. I’ve found myself dowsing the same Bach floral remedy for each of my clients this week, all about letting go of the past, and there is that energy in the air, of letting go and clearing out, before the new beginnings that Imbolc ushers in. If you read about Imbolc it will tell you this, but it’s very real. The energy really does encourage you to let go of the past and to look to the future, clearing out the old and making both outer and inner space for new beginnings.
Maybe some of you have found yourself spring cleaning. I certainly found myself having a good clear up in the healing space last night and with it in mind to clear out al the clutter that has accumulated in the shed over the winter, let alone in the boys’ bedroom. But it’s not just spring cleaning our homes, but clearing the mind and heart to allow inspiration to enter for the new cycle. Last night in yoni yoga, and actually on Sunday too, we did focus on letting go into the exhalation and there was a fair bit of shaking it out too.
Furthermore I know I am not the only one who has embarked on a healing journey at the beginning of this year. I am a month now into weekly Reiki sessions from a lovely Reiki Master I have found on the island. Some of you have been coming to see me weekly too, to really go deeper and clear away some of the clutter, which has accumulated and needs now to go so that there is space for the new to enter in.
I didn’t do this consciously, in so much, as I wasn’t thinking, “ah ha, Imbolc is approaching, most let go”, but some part of me clearly recognised the benefit in doing so in tune with the energetic shift of letting go that this time between winter solstice and Imbolc brings, reminding us to trust those intuitive nudges, even if we don’t feel we can afford it, or have the time for it or whatever obstacle we place in our path to prevent us starting in the first place.
I mean there is another element to this, in so much as Imbolc is traditionally the festival which honours and celebrates the pagan Goddess, Bridgid, who is the goddess of healing, poetry and smith craft. She is essentially the goddess of fire, of the sun and of the hearth. She brings fertility to the land and its people and is closely connected to midwives and new born babies. She is also known as the Triple Goddess but at imbolc she is in her maiden aspect. Thus this is a fabulous time for healing as we embrace the energy of Bridgid within ourselves. We should probably be writing some poetry too, in front of the fire!
It’s kind of funny though because back in the day, 10 and 7 years ago now when we were going through IVF, I knew lots about the moon cycle and my menstrual cycle, and while I celebrated the turning of the wheel, I wasn’t so aware of the reality of the energetic shifts and how these could be used to opportune whatever we are trying to bring into our lives. I mean, sure we can read about it, but to truly trust in it and live by it is a another thing.
Yet I was sort of doing that without truly realising it, in so much as we were embarking on IVF at this time of yea, over Imbolc. I was indeed the maiden, and I was keen to conceive and become pregnant. Of course there’s lots I did to support this, which some of you have probably read about in my book Dancing with the Moon, but there is no doubt that the energy of Imbolc, and the fact my eggs were collected and fertilised on a full moon helped enormously. It was just coincidence on the one hand and yet, probably entirely not on the other - in so much as sometimes we’re aligned and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we’re in our flow and supported by the cosmos and sometimes not.
When we tried a frozen cycle in the summer it was no surprise to me that it failed. Not least because I wasn’t in the right place to go through IVF at that time, but also because the energy was all wrong. For the embryo too it wasn’t right, it had been frozen in springtime, full of that vital cosmic energy of newness and it was being defrosted after Lammas, towards the autumnal equinox, when the energy was waning considerably. It was still a shock, but I just knew that energetically it wasn’t supported, the alignment wasn’t there, the timing off and a process that I had to go through to have greater empathy for my clients who experience failed IVF cycles.
Anyway, Imbolc is one of my favourite turning of the wheel celebrations because of the new energy. It marks the beginning of the lambing season and signals the beginning of spring too with the stirrings of new life. The original word ‘Imbolc’ means ‘in the belly’. All is pregnant and expectant and only just visible if at all, like the gentle curve of a ‘just-showing’ pregnancy - I love this comparison. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, or earth awakening and life stirring. It’s about hope really.
But it’s one thing reading this and quite another being actually able to feel it and to live one’s life in accordance with this cosmic shift. Perhaps we’re all doing it anyway, but to be conscious of it and live one’s life in alignment with the shifts is empowering and indeed magical. But it does take time, and one does need to make an effort to connect with nature and her cycles, as well as one’s own cycles and this in itself can involve some significant letting go, reshuffling and orientation and in most cases, a change of being within the world.
When I think back to when this all started, well my life is significantly different now. I spend a good percentage of my life outside now, which I did’t do back then bar the daily sea swimming which took me at least to the beach. I don’t swim much in the winter now, but I am outside daily, not least cycling on the school run and to the shops but out walking and with my little home school lot as we tend to meet outdoors. I get out at night too, when the moon and the neolithic stones call, so I am lucky to have an awareness of the cycles as they unfold.
It wasn’t always this way, I think back now to my twenties, before I found yoga and Reiki and how I would get outside to play netball but I didn’t have any awareness of the changes in moon and/or season other than from the netball court and the office window! The outdoor living is much preferred, and has been well worth the financial sacrifice that it has demanded. Mind you how can one put a price on one’s freedom and time spent with children, well more so Elijah in my case, i don’t see as much of Eben as he is at school and I am often working when he is at home.
But somehow we find a way. It’s a dance, a give and take, but that’s the thing with life, it is a cycle in itself. We live in a universe of cycles. Nothing stays the same. And while at times this can be extremely disorientating and maybe even scary, at other times it’s a blessed relief. We need the dark to see the light as much as we need the light to see the dark. It is only us who place value on one more than the other, but really they’re both parts of a whole and so there is nothing to fear, but fear itself.
And the other thing is that really, there’s a lot of comfort that comes from knowing these cycles, because we begin to see that there is actually order in this universe, despite the seeming chaos. You know, the menstrual cycle, the moon cycle, the daily sun cycle, the annual sun cycle, the cycle of nature, all just a wax and a wane and everything in between. There is something very comforting about not only knowing this but seeing it manifest in nature and feeling into it in our own energy field.
When we follow our own menstual cycle, for example, we begin to notice when our outer life is out of balance because our menstrual cycle, and especially our blood, loses its flow a bit. We can also notice when we are going through a period of transition as we will transition from menstruating on the full moon to the new moon or vice versa instead. We will also notice when we are not nurturing ourselves as much as we should because we might experience more pre-menstrual symptoms than usual. We’ll notice how much stress affects our cycle and the repression of emotions too, because they’ll all come up just before menstruation and we’ll either end up angry, or a blubbering mess, or both!
But it doesn’t have to be that way. It can be much gentler the more we reclaim all parts of ourselves and wax and wane with our energetic flow, knowing when to be active and when to slow down. But anyway, pointless me writing about this here as you can go and read much more about this in my online menstrual cycle and moon pack, which also contains a selection of yoga and meditation practices to help you understand more of the nature of your own cycle and the moon cycle and much better for you to have first hand knowledge and experience and indeed embodiment, than reading my embodied experiences here!
There is much more I could share about the shifting energy as we cycle the year, about how I met a best friend in a dolmen on the spring equinox bringing together the masculine and feminine, he with a Bengal cat too and also a Reiki Master and lover of neolithic stones and in service to Gran Mere too. Let alone the intense energy at Beltane that has us all wanting to dance and come together in union, sexual or otherwise, and not surprising therefore that the St Michael’s line, which is aligned with Beltane, runs through Glastonbury Tor for here the chalice and the meeting with the Mary line for alchemy and indeed the sacred marriage.
Let alone the energy at the summer solstice that has us up early in the morning and hyper all day after watching those first sun rays even more so if you’re at a site like Stonehenge, which has been built with an alignment to that auspicious day. And the shift that one feels at autumn, as we descend deeper into the darkness knowing that there is literally no way back now and then the joy that arrives at the winter solstice, snug in our blankets, fires warming us, and knowing that the light will now return again.
There is great joy in all these cycles and I never cease to be blown away by the magic that pervades our world if we let it, if we take the time to tune into it and notice it, not least within ourselves but out there in nature - we are a micro or the macro. I’m grateful for this opportunity to heal and let go, for this transition that is upon us as we move from one way of being to another. I have a feeling that life will look very different by the time we celebrate the spring equinox and tip the balance to further light.
Happy cycling and happy letting go ahead of Imbolc. You have probably seen but I am offering a last minute Imbolc yoni yoga session on Sunday to truly let go of the past, of whatever is hiding you back, and embrace the newness of this beautiful new energy and new beginnings.
Love Emma x
. Or the active energy at the summer solstice that has us up in the early hours to see sunrise and energised ALL day off the potency of the experience, let alone the wane
