The Turning of the Wheel...

My restless simmering continues. The pot of stew is on the back burner, steadily simmering its little bubbles, like a subtle background noise that you can’t quite identify. An aroma of unsettledness permeates the house. Despite this, I was determined to take the Christmas tree down today - finally. For some reason I wanted to leave it up this month – not for sentimental reasons, but mostly for the warm glow of light that it emitted in the living room in the evenings. There was something inviting about its presence lighting up the bay window that I just didn’t want to disturb. Earlier this week, however, both my husband and I said: It’s time to take the tree down. There was that internal ‘Yes’ again. It was time. The movement was there. Maybe that’s what I was waiting for. I kind of like living my life according to this internal ‘Yes’ – living according to an internal movement, which is not always possible in these times and circumstances with its demands and over stimulations. At one point on my “path” I was drawn to Native American Spirituality and paying attention to cycles and rhythms – not only of the seasons but my own. This is also true in the Celtic traditions – living by the cycles of the sun and moon, with the inner and outer cycles; a kind of indigenous way of living and moving through life – a connection with earthy rhythms. The excursion to the spice shop yesterday, and its smells, got me back in touch with that sense of earthiness and timing and rhythms and cycles. And I will have to say that it feels good. There’s a different kind of internal channel that I’m tuning into here…

I put on a Deva Premal CD and listened to her melodious chants as I took each ornament off its artificial branch, dusted it off, and placed it back in its resting box waiting for another year. Suddenly and unexplainably I began to feel a strange sense of “endings” rolling through me – triggered no doubt by the dismantling of the tree. It felt very visceral and very strange. What bubbled up from the bottom of the pot of stew was a sense of death, and a very deep feeling of sadness and grief. The intensity of the wave that moved through took me by surprise. It left a thick mist of heaviness around me that lasted all afternoon – like the odor of a pungent spice that sticks. Not to sound morbid here folks, just sharing my experience. When my husband returned from his afternoon networking meeting, I told him what happened. He had experienced a similar feeling as well on the way to the meeting – a deep sense of sadness and grief… Oo-do-do-do, Oo-do-do-do… Is there something in the air? Maybe it was in that packet of spices I brought home…

The sense that keeps coming to me is that of endings, change and transition. The Celtic traditions use the phrase “turning of the wheel” when one season transitions into another, like now with the coming of Imbolg – translated: “in the belly of the mother” – waiting for birth, for expression – for the turning of Winter into Spring. In dismantling the tree I unexpectedly connected with something deeper within beyond my thought processes, something I can’t explain – something “indigenous” to life Itself – the felt sense of change, endings – and uncertainty. Unfortunately this only fueled the flames under my pot of restlessness.

So now what? I don’t know exactly… And maybe the “now what” doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s just about being available to the movement, tuning into the turning of the Wheel. It feels like the same sense of waiting for the ‘Yes’ that I’ve been experiencing lately – waiting for an internal movement. It’s a sense of moving *with* something larger than my-self, allowing *that* to move me. Sitting on the back burner - patiently waiting for the movement and expression of Life…