Singing in the spring
Last Friday, on Imbolc1, I started something new and challenging: I got up two hours early to meditate with a friend over Zoom. I am not by habit an early riser, my husband is a night owl and since I usually sleep better if his side of the bed is warm I have molded myself to his schedule. But the opportunity to start a daily meditation with the aid of a set time and people expecting me to join in was too good to pass up, so I set the alarm and attempted to go to bed earlier. I wasn’t successful in that last part, but I rolled gamely out of bed at 6:40 the next morning, stumbled into sweatpants and a hoodie, and logged into Zoom. I used my mala and Ashtanga yoga breathing (called Ujjayi Pranayama) as a focus point, wooden beads clicking through my fingers as my ocean breath rolled in and out like the tide. Halfway through our allotted 15 minutes I noticed sounds outside my window: birdsong, the fluting music of feather-fluffers returned for nesting, singing in the season. I have spent this entire week listening for and reveling in the music of the snowbirds come home. Today, while I was walking, a robin landed in our crabapple tree and looked at me, head cocked; a promise of Imbolc fulfilled.
There are many such promises now. The sun has been a glory, spring-warm during the day with the temperatures plummeting overnight in its absence: perfect maple syrup weather! Buds on the maple trees are swelling maroon with new life. My mother told me that she pulled three ticks off her little dog after hiking this weekend (in February!), and that she had been swarmed by mosquitoes during that really warm week at the end of January. My mother is and always will be a California girl at heart and she hates winter in Ohio, even these returning nuisances are reasons for celebration of a kind. Imbolc promises spring, and it is coming. Not here yet, no matter how lovely this week has been I’ve lived in Ohio long enough to know there will be more winter in our near future. But, coming.
My seeds are sprouting and growing. With their hope in our hearts, my daughters and I planted a light garden, our hopes written down and “sown” under lit candles. We watched the candles burn into rainbow pools of melted wax in the dirt. After that we threw open every window in the house, releasing the stale air of winter (and the smell of burning potting soil!) and filling our home with clean, cold air. I set a match to a sage smudge stick and we paraded through the house with the smoking stick, chanting, “Out with the old, in with the new!” It was a joyous parade, the new, fresh air mingling with the smell of sage smoke and the scent of the candles we made earlier. New Beginnings candles, frankincense and lavender. Candles to burn throughout the year when starting something new, or when I need new energy to finish a project. This is the year’s waxing crescent, gathering energy and optimism. “I am open to receive2.”
Like the returning birds I am shaking myself alert, looking around, accessing what needs doing. I have much to offer, I realize with surprise. I have not been idle during the winter, and soon the time will come to turn all that I have learned in this season of endarkenment into enligtened action. For now, I have a moment to turn my face into the warming sun and sing my own song of welcome. Spring is coming, and I am ready.
Imbolc is the agricultural wheel of the year festival that marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. Like all cross-quarter festivals (there are four: Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas, and Samhain), Imbolc is a time of transition between seasons.
Cook, Fiona. The Wheel of the Year: An Illustrated Guide to Nature's Rhythms. United States, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2023.