Imbolc, underground

staying with the threshold

We are living in a time of deep uncertainty — something I touched on briefly in a note I shared by email yesterday, and want to linger with more fully here.

So much feels unsettled — in the world, in our communities, in our nervous systems, in our sense of what comes next. Old structures are shifting or failing. Familiar reference points no longer orient us the way they once did. Many of us are carrying both an urgency to respond and a profound fatigue — with so much that feels important, and no clear sense of when the pressure will ease.

I’ve been feeling this too.

Which is why the language of threshold has been returning to me again and again.

Imbolc — an ancient threshold echoed today in St. Brigid’s Day, Groundhog Day, and Candlemas — marks a beginning, though not the kind we’re often taught to look for. It’s less a single day and more a passage we move through slowly, arriving in early February when winter still holds strong. In many earth-honoring traditions, Imbolc names the first quiet stirrings of life beneath the surface: seeds warming in frozen ground, energy gathering long before anything can be seen.

Not spring.
Not resolution.
But potential.

What’s striking to me is how closely this mirrors the moment we’re living in — collectively and personally. We are at a threshold out there in the world, and we are also at thresholds in here, within our own lives. There is work to tend in both places.

There are real things to respond to.
Real responsibilities to hold.
Real ways we show up for one another and for what’s being asked of us.

And.

There is also inner work that cannot be skipped — the kind that happens quietly, slowly, and often out of view.

In the dark.

When I speak of trusting the dark, I’m not talking about the darkness we are witnessing in the world — the harm, the injustice, the cruelty that must be named and addressed. I am speaking of a different kind of dark altogether.

The dark as refuge.
The dark as womb.
The dark as the place where we rest, restore, dream, and listen.

This is the dark where we come home to ourselves — where we tend our nervous systems, metabolize grief, touch what is still good and life-giving, and remember why we care at all. It is the dark that allows something new to form without being prematurely exposed or forced into shape.

And living here — even briefly — asks something different of us than the usual rhythms of pushing forward or trying to figure it out.

Especially when the world feels on fire. Especially when we want nothing more than winter to be over and to get on with things.

Imbolc has surprised me like that. I expected this season to ask me to offer something outward — a gathering, a container, a clear next step. Instead, what has been asked of me is to slow down even more. To listen longer. To allow what’s stirring to return underground for more time, more space, more quiet.

This has brought me into a question I’m living with now — and perhaps you are too:

Not “What should I do?”
but “What is mine to do?”

It’s a subtler question. A more relational one. It doesn’t demand immediacy or certainty. It invites listening — listening for what is yours to carry, yours to tend, yours to offer — and just as importantly, what is not.

For me, that listening looks like creating quietly, meditating, resting where I can, staying present to daily life, and letting myself be shaped by this moment rather than rushing to shape it. It’s a way of staying resourced — not so I can withdraw from the world, but so I can meet it with clarity, steadiness, and integrity when the next step does reveal itself.

If you find yourself in a similar place — sensing something stirring but not yet knowing what it is or what it will ask of you — I want to offer this reassurance:

You are not late.
You are not failing to act.
You are not doing it wrong.

You may be standing in a potent, necessary pause — one that allows your inner life to catch up with the times we’re living in.

In moments like these, our task is not only to respond, but to remain human. To stay present. To tend what is hard and take refuge in what is good — even when that goodness feels fragile, or hard to admit. To hold the dream of the world we long for while staying honest about the one we’re in.

Imbolc doesn’t end on a date.
It lingers, inviting us to listen longer than we might think we should.

The light will return.
The spring will come.

Until then, we tend the underground.
We listen — deeply, patiently, together.
And we trust that what is forming in the dark is not wasted time, but necessary preparation. ❤️

---

If you’re drawn to ritual as a gentle way of staying in relationship with the season — without needing to know what comes next — I’ve made a free, simple ritual guide available here. To receive it, you’ll be invited to share your email address, and the guide will be sent directly to you. It’s offered as a companion, not a prescription, and you’re welcome to it if it feels supportive.