Here in Northern California the weather is dry and chilly, but moments in the sun remind me of the fiery energy of spring pulsing just under the winter cold. I love the darkness of winter but I also love the tease of spring that reveals itself in brief moments of light. Here is a photo I took while walking little Adam. I was cold but the sun shone through and illuminated my reality for a moment.

Walking my dog keeps me in remembrance of the seasons. This is the season of winter that will turn to spring and in which new seeds are waiting to burst from dormancy under the muted sunlight. This is the holy time between Solstice and Imbolc honored by our European Pagan ancestors in which the excitation that precedes transformation is happening under the surface. The mystery of the holy days are profound because they illuminate the actual transitions of nature. We as humans are inextricably part of nature and so this cycle is felt within our very being.

When you think about it, the shifting of our environment as it dances with the weather and the increasing and decreasing play of celestial light cannot be expressed as a single static season, but rather as a constant movement of the multiple sacred earthly elements in deep interrelationship happening on micro and macro levels in the world around us and within us ALL THE TIME.

I believe that is the message for the new year and I believe that is the what should inspire our resolutions — that we continue to explore deeply our relationship with the living world and allow ourselves to live its expression through our physicality and awareness. I am hoping for, and counting on, a deep transformation in our collective consciousness toward reclaiming this ancestral wisdom as we move from winter to spring. I can feel the next levels of awakening collectively waiting to burst forth. Namaste and Happy New Year!