Seeds of Spring

10/04/19 | By Keli Tomlin
Categories:
Articles

Seeds of Spring

If you listen really carefully

In Fairview Park this morning

You will hear the daffodils

The very nearly daffodils

All of a tremble

Whispering to one another

“Is it nearly time?

Is it nearly time?”

And one particularly anxious one

Whispering to her neighbour

“Remind me again!

Remind me again!”

“Yellow”

- Pat Ingoldsby

We GATHERed in the park to celebrate the Spring Equinox and I found myself, unexpectedly, “all of a tremble”. My words came out jumbled, my thoughts were uncertain and intentions and ideas that had been so clear to me before became obscured. I began to worry that those who had chosen to gather with me would be left feeling similarly confused and unsure.

But as I breathed and continued to speak beneath the cloudy sky, feeling the grass at my feet and sensing every bud straining from its branch and filling the air with its single-minded determination, I began to spiral towards an understanding…

Beneath the cloak of Winter, life – and as part of that, we – have been carefully curating a solid foundation to root into; built from our dreams, our musings and our deepest heart yearnings. Some of these will have taken strong shape and presented a clear vision of themselves for us to embrace. Others simply offer feelings, notions, intuitions that we need both trust and determination to form into something we can sink into.

Then at Imbolc we are stirred and send our roots down into that dreamy loam, providing a firm anchor from which growth and action can explode. And when it does, called by some silent clarion (the warm Spring sun, Lady Spring’s footsteps, the exact right number of crocuses in our window box), we burst free from our seed pod and begin reaching upward, through the darkness, towards the light. But in that moment of break out the integrity of our seed is compromised and suddenly we are open to all sorts of uncomfortable feelings: instability, uncertainty, fear and doubt.

It is in that moment that we have a choice: to focus all our energy on reaching out, reaching up, getting going and getting it done or to take a little time to tend to our seed-heart and give it the care it needs to remain a stable anchor?

In the midst of my own verbal instability I found the words of a poem and I was compelled to share it. Only as I spoke the words to the listening circle did I realise how profoundly it spoke to all of us of our experience leading up to this Equinox. The soft smiles, the nods, the deep breaths and most of all the clarity that I found in my own words once I’d finished reciting.


I have faith in all that is not yet spoken,

I want to set free my inner most feelings.

What no one else has dared to long for

Will spring through me spontaneously.

Is that too bold? Then, my God forgive me,

But I want to say just this to you:

My true power should come like a shoot, a force of nature

No pushing, no holding back,

The way the children love you.”

-excerpt from ‘Dedication’ by Rainer Marie Rilke


The plants, the tree and the creatures all seem to handle this balance with far more grace and ease than we humans. They do not forget to nurture the seed whilst reaching for the sky. There is “no pushing, no holding back” in a leaf bud or a bird’s egg; they come when they are ready, when it is right, and when they do, they come fully as they are, accepting of their shape and colour and form.

When we imagine the emergence of whatever we hope to be or achieve we like to try and plan the exact shape and space it will take up, the precise impact it will have on others, the intricate details of its entire life. We question the pros and cons, the worth of each element and measure up against an untold number of impossible, often impractical, standards. Yet if instead we could turn towards the seed-heart and use all that controlling energy to see what truly lies there, working towards accepting that in whatever form it may currently be, then maybe, just maybe we could emerge with the ease of a bird or a blossom or a butterfly.

As if to affirm this new idea, the sun burst through the clouds as I finished speaking the poem and warmed us through. Filled with a new understanding and clarity, we could open to the possibility and promise of the season as we walked a daffodil path into the embrace of a bud-laden tree; there we asked it and the whole waking World for whatever energy, inspiration and support we felt we might need to meet our own ‘enoughness’. Then we rang bells and cheered and whooped in celebration of the World’s ease and beauty at this time, hoping we might absorb some of that into our own selves too.

The brightness of that simple ritual, the warmth of the emergent Sun and the message of ‘enoughness’ that this Equinox gifted me with remains strong in my seed-heart. I no longer tremble, in fact, I’d say I am feeling quite firmly “Yellow”.




Keli is a green-spirited Celebrant and writer based in Derbyshire, UK. She creates ceremonies for all life’s special moments and holds space for deep connection between people and the Land. She enjoys exploring her own connections through poetry, prose and original stories. Find out more at www.kelitomlinceremonies.com, on Facebook and Instagram @kelitomlin

Categories:

0 comments on this article

This thread has been closed from taking new comments.