I gasped in delight as I stood in front of a delicate snowdrop on a foggy Imbolc morning. The white petals reached towards the earth as the stem of the flower curved like a staff. This small cluster of flowers were beacons of hope in a world cloaked in gray.
I paused in silent reverence to admire the strength and delicacy of this emblematic flower. A gentle breeze shakes from the petals morning dew. Time passes.
Since the beginning of 2024, there has been so much waiting. The seemingly endless month of January has, rather painfully, had nothing happen. A seemingly contradictory busy exhaustion coupled with impatient waiting in limbo of stagnantly spinning around in place.
Snowdrops are the flower of Imbolc, passing on February 1, which celebrates the goddess Brigid and commemorates the halfway point from the Winter Solstice to the Spring Equinox. This marks something happening. The endings, what was released in Winter Solstice, has created space for something.
Gazing upon the solemnity of the snowdrops, solitary in an orchard of sleeping apple trees, the stillness spreads like a mist as time stands still. It is as if the landscape has paused, as if the very ground is waiting.
Of course, there is so much life still happening beneath the seemingly stasis surface - the world is in gestation, waiting for spring to come. There is so much waiting as our own lives are in gestation, waiting for life to come.
There is an unmistakable existential impatience to this limbo. I often use the analogy in sessions that you can be happily on sea for years but when you finally see the land, you also see the distance between you and the shore. Seeing where you want to be can be so empowering - and also disappointing to see that you aren’t there yet.
Be with this impatience. Know when it is time to act. Neither overstay in places you no longer belong nor hurry too fast past the pain. Trust in your inner knowing to remain insofar as your own centre allows and make haste when the time is right for you.
What is it that you are waiting for?