Hope springs eternal
/Hello my loves,
Oh my lord, spring has sprung!!! A mere three weeks ago, we were still in winter, with nature coming over all modest and coy as tiny buds in their brown day-dresses huddled shyly on bare branches. But now?! Boom boom POW, beauty has burst forth from every branch, twig and tree, creating a technicolour dream landscape of blossom and sweet new green leaves.
I’m perched at my writing desk, the doors flung open, half-drunk on the intoxicating fragrance of lemon blossom, watching bees do their busy work in the enormous bunches of honey-scented wisteria that are festooning the balcony outside. It’s bliss. If spring brings one thing, it’s hope. After a cold winter, where the energy slows and deepens, and if I’m honest, sometimes drags, spring flings herself forth, almost out of nowhere, transforming the landscape in a matter of days and bringing a huge burst of fresh energy, fresh air and new life that can’t fail to give you a bit of a tingle. Suddenly, it all doesn’t seem quite so bad. Sure, it’s been a freaking mother of a year, but jeez, look at those blossoms. Feel your body unfolding towards the sun’s golden kiss, the caress of real warmth that you haven’t felt in months. Dust off your flippy skirt and go for a stroll, plucking a few springs of scented blossom to decorate your nest with when you return.
Look, I know it’s been a freaking mother of a year. It has for me too. This has been a year of deep lessons for every soul on earth. Basically, if there’s any emotional work you’ve been avoiding, I’m willing to bet that 2020 has smacked you right around the head with it, violently, probably a number of times. It has for me too. This is a year of intense, brave work, where our deepest shadows have been glaringly illuminated right before our very eyes, and the universe has asked us just what we’re going to do about them. Like I said, deep work. For everyone. And do you know what deep work is? It’s hard!! It’s bloody hard hard hard hard hard!! It doesn’t feel nice. It feels confronting and painful and awful and often like it’s going to actually kill you. But it won’t. What it will really do is elevate you. It’ll push you, often painfully, to new levels of emotional awareness, and new levels of alignment. And who you get there, it will feel really, really good. As a world, we are elevating right now, to a place of better alignment with ourselves, and with the earth who nourishes us.
In my part of the world, we slipped into the pandemic right around the autumn equinox. Next Tuesday 22 September, it’s the spring equinox - the other day of the year, exactly six months later, where the day and night are of equal length. This week I’ve been reflecting on who I was in March, and who I am now. This year has flung bucket-loads of the unforseen into all of our lives, but glory-me, I’ve learned so much. I’ve been gifted some really beautiful experiences, and some really tough ones, and I’m deeply, deeply grateful for them all. I’ve seen things in myself that I’ve never really seen before, not all of them good, and I’m putting my shoulders back, staring them straight in the face, and doing the work to clear them.
But there now, it’s spring! A time for hope and joy and creation, freshness and newness and growth. I watched the most incredible interview this week with Dr Edith Eger, a survivor of Auschwitz, who spoke about finding the gift in everything we experience. I found it incredibly moving, and full of deep lessons, and you can watch it here (scroll about halfway down the post for the video). Also Edie, as she calls herself, is ninety-two years old. She wrote her first book at ninety!! Then a second at ninety-two, and she has a third on the way.
If 2020 has been calling you to feel more authentically into your life purpose, and do what you’re really here to do, I encourage you to hold Edie in your heart as an incredible example of someone who’s fully embraced hers, against the most unimaginable of odds. The ‘I’m too old for a new career’ line is one that everybody trots out when they’re working through the fear that comes with acknowledging the special gift you’re really here to share. Edie categorically blows that one right out of the water. It’s spring, the time of creation and new beginnings. What could you birth from deep within you that would bring a spark of joy to the world?
And so my loves, I’ll leave you to what I hope is a glorious weekend. Whether you’re deep in the eye-popping blossom palette of spring, or snuggled in the Northern Hemisphere amongst autumn’s golden russets, I wish you much love, and peace in your heart, as we keep on trucking and step forth into our new and beautiful earth.
Love, Rachel xxx
PS If you're wanting to delve deeper into the traditions and spiritual significance of the spring equinox, the divine Rebecca Wyldewood is holding an online sacred circle this Sunday 20 September, where she'll be diving deep into this most beautiful of seasonal junctures. Rebecca's teachings are incredibly powerful. They really help me to anchor my own personal experience into the context of what's happening spiritually on earth right now, and that is always uber-comforting. You'll find more info and tickets here.
