February 1st is Imbolc. Often seen as the start of Spring. It comes exactly between the winter equinox and the spring solstice. It is known as a quarter day. In the church calendar it is known as Candlemas the time to get candles blessed but also when the light is coming.
It has been noticeable on my morning dog walks that the sky is lightening, that there is a something in the air. Things have changed. The Met Office is still “promising” us a cold snap later in the month, but the air does feel different. The dawn chorus is more vibrant. This morning there was a large flock of geese flying out across the sea honking away. I can feel the urge to spring clean, to start a new things. Being me of course that means that after promising myself in January that I would only sign up for one thing at a time I now have three things I have signed up for and 2-3 others on the back burner, simmering. I can feel I want to get on and do things. Whereas at New year I wanted to hibernate. We were meant to be going to see our mothers on the 2nd weekend in January but my husband had a bit of a cold and instead of me pushing him onwards I advocated a hibernation weekend. I do think we both benefited from it. But now that the lighter days are coming I am ready to start planning.
So it got me to wondering why we don’t pick Imbolc, Candlemass, Brigid’s day, 1st February, as the day when we make resolutions for the year. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels more like it. That heaviness of Christmas has gone. That need to be doing has gone. I know people who have done Veganuary and Dry January and so are feeling lighter, fresher, healthier. Now is the time to start thinking of those things we’d like to do during the year.
No I’m not going to now start advocating goals and resolutions, as I said before [sorry can’t find that post to be able to tag it]. But I am as the sun starts to show itself more often, as the light is fresher, I am going to start doing what many did on 1st January, and am going to start looking at what I would like to achieve this year.
I’m also in that strange limbo land. My friend with the cancer died last week but there still hasn’t been a date announced for her funeral. I should know today. But for now all I can do is hold my plans lightly, not put anything firmly in my diary, and also trust. Though I also think threshold time is a good time to plan. One is stood between two worlds not yet able to step into the next. I can write my wish list on the walls of the chamber I wait in.
Though of course maybe that is why people do this in that space between Christmas and the New Year? That is a threshold time too.
I realised yesterday that I am grieving the loss of a friend. Not one who had died but one that was moving away. Since I moved to this town this person has been key in who I am and what I do here in my church life. She has spurred me on, stood by me when I’ve stepped out, filled in the gaps when they’ve needed filling. She isn’t the only but she has been one of the strong pillars that have given me the encouragement I have needed to step out. She is now doing, what I have done many times before, and is moving to another town.
Things will change.
page, put all my set things on it and then take my list of things I’d like to do and find out how I can fit them in; things like an artist’s date to write somewhere different, some study time, catch up with people time. And I also reassess if I stuck to my writing goals on the month before. I cannot say that I will leave it all until the end of the year to do this or it may never happen. But also I do not condemn myself if I do not do as I would have like – whether new year resolutions or my plan for the coming week.
choose to focus on the awful or to focus on the awesome or actually look at them as a whole and say “we made it through” which often is my response. In fact for me there have been many years in my life time that have been horrendous with smaller smatterings of awesome than we’ve had in the last 5, but I’m hear and I’m still standing and I’ll looking forward to what is to come.
Aspirational Adventures 