Spring is my own, as each turn of the spiral path moves me forward

Or: why my Imbolc does not resemble anything you know

The fixed date of Imbolc on the 1st of February, Candlemas and the Full Moon of February is well behind us now, and for many in the Northern Hemisphere the first shoots of green are visible.

But here, up in the mountains, overseeing the Rhone valley, where we still have minus temperatures during our nights, and where the mornings are incredibly crisp and unforgiving, the landscape is still well in the realm of stoney grey and bare brown.

There are barely any snowdrops, unless you have planted them close to your house, and primroses are not yet out either.

Here, it is not the first green that tells us of the changing seasons, nor the first flower.

And yet, when people tell themselves that winter still has a grasp on them, I smile. Because the cold and white light are very well, signs of spring. The cold and snow are not winter heralds anymore, even if they still hold the first layers of the earth in its cool grass. Here it is the changing of the light in the morning that heralds change. It is this change of the length of light hours that wakes the birds who suddenly become vocal around 7am in the gardens. But only once every few days. When the time is just right. And then they will be silent again for a few days¹.

Around me the first moments of movement are usually the earliest spring messages. The moving and going of birds, and traces of foxes that come closer to the home because the ice holds too much of the land now, but also the deer remaining a bit too long in the lower half of the valley, and can be seen with their fawns running home in the early mornings and my children will run to me at noon to tell me how they saw a mother and their child while their noses were fighting against the cold².

The central western calendar that was adopted to mark the changes of the seasons, has something so static to it, while there can be so much more nuance. Early spring, full spring, late spring… they all have reference for me. And they look nothing like what you can see in the books about pagan life, the wheel of the year or any similar teaching.

Because here, we lag behind the main land. In the mountains the seasons have their own timing. Some years we come very close to the ‘standard’ experience, and some years we simply do not.

Early spring, bringing fire into our hearths and re-lighting the light within ourselves,.. you know the one that was reborn in the midst of winter at the Winter Solstice, it is a process that takes time and feeling it, telling its movement is something that invites you to root down into the land you have chosen to live on. All teachings, no matter the source or the culture is a reflection of humans trying to make sense of their expriences and the process of nature around them.

It is a dire testament for our modern human minds that we cannot seem to do the same for the current climate crisis and the adaptations we need to create for ourselves.

The experience or process in question can be important such as catastrophes or other hugely impactful developements within the local ecosystem, or they can be small, even minor, such as a changing moon phase or the passing of a season.

This puts our experience into the top spot for being the first thing we actually need to be present for. There is little to no use for book knowledge of how things should be, or can be read or exprienced, to notice this difference and accept it, you need to be rooted into the world and land around you.

Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo on Unsplash

So, my spring this year… it is dark and too bright, it is uncomfortable and with even less clarity than the ending of the calendar year of 2024 was. It is full of expectation, and the trust that things will unfold and allow for more beauty.

Until then, I spend my mornings with warm tea and beautiful words of my current authors and creators (here on substack, or Sharon Blackie as I finish my 3rd read through Hagitude, Ursula K. Le Guinn and some really deep Buddhist Teachings about Mandalas and CG Jung), try my hardest to stay away from current social media and politics because it sets all the silenced ancestral history in my bones on fire, move through astonishment about learning about my father’s wishes after his passing, and connect with my sisters of blood, and heart and soul to see where our next big projects will bring us.

This, to me, is spring.

It is far from the bright flowers, and freshly green lawns, or early births of lamb and cow. It is far from what we wish spring could be, because we really need a change after the cold and dark.

That change will come. But it starts with small steps, and it starts where you are right now. With roots in the dark, and the first warmth in the sun. It starts with candles in the dark because the mornings are still lacking of light, and bitter shoots of the last winter salads. And with snow, and carnaval (loud music and a whole lot of bad choices) and the folklore that banishes the last strands of winter and its dark spirits.

This too, is spring.

Half-way here, and half-already gone.

1. Of course, once you can hear them every day, you know that spring has come. ;-)

2. Swiss children walk to school in most places, in cities or in the countryside. It is part of their process of growing up without adult supervision.