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Imbolc, momentum and the clearing of the grey
It’s Imbolc and the 784 days of January are finally over. The flu has finally departed, aided by copious amounts of sleep, paracetamol and wonderful care packages from lovely friends. The endless blanket of grey cloud, damp, miserable and all-pervading has started to shift, with the wan sun peeking through and hope on the horizon.
Sleep, my goodness I have slept. But in winter, this hibernation, I tried not to fight it this year and am averaging a good 10 hours per night. I need it. Healing darkness, slow recovery, and expanding out into the January gloom. And as I slept, the world quietly moves on under my feet. The first sunny day for weeks and we finally ventured outside to the moors, faces turned to sunlight and surprise at bulbs breaking the surface. Whilst we’re still and resting, the world still turns.
The Hellebore is tentatively out, a few small flowers blooming amongst the stiff brown twigs of winter. Goldfinches pick through the mass of teasels. Teeny shoots of green poke up in random flowerpots. I can’t remember what grows in any of them and spring always brings a nice surprise! I can’t wait for that huge, heady, energetic rush of late spring. But for now, I sense that tipping point approaching. It’s still a season for rest. But seeds can be planted, physical or metaphorical. There is movement on the horizon, finally. And soon, summer!
There’s a sense of a shift as we potter about our daily lives. We’ve taken electricals to the local repair café to be fixed, we’ve painted and moved furniture and I’ve even started some university work I’ve been stuck on for 3 months. A bit of momentum building, maybe, after a year adrift. I’m not sure if 2025 was like that for everyone, speeding by so quickly it hardly registered as a full year. I think that pandemic processing is catching up. Things aren’t quite right yet, but there is hope they will be again.
The clouds reveal a glimpse of blue sky above. Spring is in the air!
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Wild gardens and holding space
The garden holds me. It runs wild this year, fuelled by curiosity and if I’m honest, a little weariness with the pressure of upkeep. Teasels have made a jungle in the veg patch, and a multitude of grasses sway and ripple in the heat. The wildness is intoxicating, though. Insects flit through, pausing to fill up on nectar. A gaggle of ladybirds pupated in their masses on the back wall and are currently finding new homes amongst the undergrowth. Rare hoverfly larvae made short work of the fir aphids that appeared, then decided to pupate under the stone slabs. I have never seen so many butterflies. And in those times where my brain is full, I sit here, as I do now, under a parasol or shaded by the gangly climbing rose, and just watch and exist alongside this riot of life.
At night, I come and wonder and gaze at stars, swooped low by bats, occasionally bumped in to by a huge, chunky moth, or catching the glimmer of ghost white wings in hedgerows. Our first poplar hawk moth arrived this year. Frogs rustle and plop in the darkness. The badger trundles through now and then. This little patch of earth, for this infinitesimally small time, shared by all the things that call it home. In that there is comfort.
Today, I’m feeling some sort of existential dread, and here I sit, rippling out waves of anxiety, and bit by bit, the garden softens me, transmutes those waves into something more gentle. It wraps itself around me, holding space, reminding me that we are all the same, and that deadlines, papers and chapters and the general rush of the final PhD year can be put aside for a moment. I watch the breeze rippling across the long, heat-faded grass, a cricket fizzing and rasping, somewhere beneath the stems.
Sometimes, of course, the anxiety hangs around. I try to accept, to flow with those tides, hormones and cycles, months and phases. And of course, try is the word. I don’t always succeed, but I try again, and again, and embrace the curiosity of it all, which in itself is freeing. I think letting go of the garden has helped, in some strange way. Leaving the grass to grow wild. Leaving the veg patch to be taken over by whatever decides to seed itself there. Watching ragwort grow through paving, and holly leaves falling into piles. The garden breathes out, free from pressure. And in that, it is thriving. Seeing the breadth of life that has decided to make it’s home next to ours, amongst this wildness and chaos, it’s taught me something. Something unformed, yet still powerful. To let go of so much control. To tread gentle paths through wildness. To sit and observe and trust that we know, somewhere deep down. We just have to create the space to listen.
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My mind is full
My mind is full, and it’s ok. I learnt recently from a lecturer that they weren’t able to read any fiction books during their doctorate, because their mind was full of information for their studies. It made me think about how I’ve struggled to get back into reading for pleasure, struggled to get into doing anything, really, for the last year or so. After beating myself up for this repeated failure to get anything done, I’ve realised that’s probably happening to me, too. The reason isn’t because I’m useless, as my brain keeps helpfully suggesting. It’s because my mind is full.
When I say full, I don’t mean full of knowledge, although I wish that was the case. My memory keeps hold of any given fact for approximately 3 seconds before chucking it over its shoulder and moving on to something more shiny. Instead, my mind is grinding away in the background, forging connections and figuring things out when I’m not paying attention. I feel like I’m not doing a lot, and it’s true, I’m not – but my mind is there, munching through information for me, until suddenly I wake up and am able to add some more words to my word count, analyse some more numbers, put something across in a way that finally makes sense.
Figuring out how to work with my brain, not against it, is a whole new ball game. I’m trying to comprehend this newly discovered neurodiversity, understand how I process information (or not) and divert the tempting feeling of regret into something more powerful. I’m nearly 40 and it’s the first time I feel like I might be tentatively trying to make friends with my mind. It’s there, always full of a million things, seeing infinite connections and possibilities every hour of every day. It’s exhausting – but also exhilarating. How do I work alongside it?
I’m finally working out why I can’t remember anything that happened in the last few hours, days or weeks. Why I’ve spent three years learning a subject and can’t remember even the most basic facts about it, but I know every boyband lyric from two decades ago. Why my mind is empty yet crammed full at the same time.
The constant bit of a song or two on loop, the half-formed images that constantly replace each other, the quote from a tv show that plays round and round, the chattering, the lightening-quick overview of any problem and a million and one solutions, the big thinking and infinite ideas, but no clue how to actually start anything. Constantly losing things, but picking up on almost imperceptible information about a situation. White-hot anger and the deepest joys. It’s all still settling with me – yet I feel a kind of peace, too.
I know now that I can feed it some complex problem, forget about it, and a few weeks later, my brain will have figured it out by itself. I’ll wake up one day and suddenly, I’ll be able to do The Thing that just recently was absolutely impossible. I trust that I will be able to produce work absolute last-minute that will be, if not perfect, to a decent standard, without having to draft and re-draft and re-draft. I try not to feel bad that I have to follow the whims of my brain – if it’s not into something, then it’s absolutely impossible to force it. Funny old thing.
But brains aren’t infinite as much they feel it. It’s just recently I’ve realised just how much I’m asking mine to do. No wonder I come home and zone out watching youtube, scrolling, or floating away to the deep wub of drum and bass. That little lump of grey matter is munching through universes in the background. Studying for a PhD has upped the game, and I almost physically feel the limits. No wonder I find it hard to get anything started for this blog, much as I want to. My brain’s already pre-occupied and working full pelt.
So, I’m going to try and cut my brain-friend some slack. I’ve spent 40 years at war with it, really, when it didn’t deserve it at all – it was just a little different from the norm. Of course it was.
In those 40 years, my mind has never been empty. I never realised that you could think of nothing, or even just one thing at a time. It’s been like a 40-year rave inside my head and I’ve been like the spoilsports that call the cops and try and shut it down.
I think it’s time to learn to dance alongside it, finally, although I think I’ll also need to make sure there’s a chill-out room, too…!
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October Review and Reset
October Review and Reset
October is almost over. The brighter days turn to grey and mist, to dark evenings and the brief flare of red, gold and brown autumnal leaves. It’s the time to reflect, to look back over the past year and take stock of all that has happened.
In the wheel of the year, the end of October (or around the end of April in the Southern hemisphere), Samhain is seen as the end of the harvest season, and the start of winter. I feel that natural winding down of the energy of summer is a perfect time to review, and take the time to plant new ideas, new seeds to nestle down in the dark of winter, waiting to come to fruition in the spring. I find the January new year quite jarring – a forced push, in the middle of winter here in the Northern hemisphere, when all else is resting. It’s nice to align with a different timeline, one that fits me, that follows the ebb and flow of the natural world.
You don’t have to follow a particular calendar, to celebrate a certain festival, to begin to wind down and review around this time. It’s the perfect time to take stock of where you are before January, to re-prioritise if needed, to let go or take on board. If you’d like to give it a go, here’s what I do – you can do what feels right for you, but it might give you a few ideas.
Ideas for your October Review and Reset
Creating a theme
I have one theme for the year, rather than resolutions. I think of all the ways I can bring this theme into my life, and the things I particularly want to work on throughout the year. I used to have 3 themes, but eventually realised this didn’t fit well with me – it might work well for you! I decided that having one overarching thing for the year lets me give it more space. Once I have my theme, I think of things that I want to work on that relate to it.
So, as an example, my theme last year was ‘regeneration’. I’d had a bit of a weird time over the last few years, in addition to a close family bereavement the previous month. I wanted to begin to re-root myself in place, to start sustainable systems for food, for nature, and for my mind, and to work on coming back to myself – a regeneration of sorts. I wanted to find a solid sense of self – after years bending and changing to fit in, I wanted a breather and to build some solidity and understanding into my soul! So, for me, the theme of regeneration gave me time to stop and process, to put things I’ve learned from therapy, and from experience, into place to help me re-build a life more true to myself, whoever this self turns out to be.
Reviewing last year’s theme
I’m not a very specific sort of person, and find it very hard (and boring) to plan goals and how to achieve them. If my brain isn’t interested, it’s basically impossible. After years of fighting that, I now give myself the freedom to bend and change with how I approach my theme. I will start things, stop things, go on a diversion, get really into something for a while, then forget all about it. So in my review, I’ll look over the last 12 months as a whole, rather than wondering if I should have achieved a specific thing or not. Did I generally align myself with my theme? Where there some months that were better than others? What have I done over the year that reflected this theme?
The key is finding ways that work for you. Most people I know find it really motivating to set a goal and work out how to achieve it, and if this is you, do that! Whatever works for you, that’s the right way.
Over the last year, I’ve managed to let the garden go wilder (regeneration for nature), begin to process my neurodiversity and find ways to understand my brain more (regeneration for self). I’ve leaned into using my skills learned from my job to benefit my study at university (regeneration of skills) and learnt how to make a small animation from a course I went on (regeneration of skills and self!). Through this, I’ve begun to find confidence in myself, and am starting to find a more solid ‘me’. Did I plan how to do any of these things? No. But generally, I felt I managed to incorporate my theme into my actions. There were a few areas I didn’t focus on (health, movement) but looking back, I give myself space for the things I was experiencing at the time. It wasn’t the right time for those things – whereas now, that baseline work has given me a stronger platform to start to incorporate those for the next year. It’s all very gentle, but true to what I needed in those moments. Sometimes, change isn’t about putting a lot of energy into a project or goal. Sometimes it’s the lack of energy that allows something the space to settle itself.
October Review and Reset: looking back month by month
I use my photo app to jog my memory as to what I was doing each month – usually I look in 3-month (ish) chunks (again with the non-specifics!) and write down any things that happened, and think about how this affected me. Would I want to have acted differently? Did I learn anything? Could I use those learnings to inform my theme for this year? Is there anything I’d like to build on? You could also use a journal to remind you, look at your posts on social media, or review a news site – I often find I remember where I was in relation to big news stories.
I remember things I loved from the last year, holidays, good walks, moments of learning, connection, nature. Wild swims and good laughs. I also remember the more painful times – worrying events in the news, new understanding, grief, loss, sadness. I find this cathartic – the re-living of those moments, knowing you’re here, on the other side (or still journeying through, as the process changes over time). Sometimes I take a few days for this part. Be gentle with yourself, and remember the joy with the pain. It all goes to make you who you are, and is all part of your journey.
I look at what comes out of this process – would I like to use any learnings to inform my theme for this year? In my case, this year, I want to build on my new understanding of my brain and start to work with it, not against it. I want to let go of stress with the garden and provide more places for the beings that share the land alongside us. I want to create resilience for times of unexpected occurrences – building my foraging knowledge, creating plans, starting to use my body again. I want to work more on my spiritual path, to be in nature more, make more time for creativity. Begin to build a plan for after I finish university (which is this blog!). I have no specifics, but I know these things all encompass similarities in the intention behind them. Recognising these similarities starts to help me pin down my theme for the coming year.
Incorporate other tools
You can incorporate other things into your October review and reset. I like to do a tarot spread looking back over the year, along my theme. I look at learnings and where I can build in the future – I find it gives me another perspective to look both behind me and to the path ahead. A meditation would also be a nice action, or a walk in nature to a special spot. I give myself a few days to do my review, usually leading up to Samhain on the 31st, so have a few days disconnected from the world, intentionally creating this sort of temporal space in which to look back and look forwards. I tidy, I bake, I wander in nature, and feel very contemplative!
Planting seeds
I like the gentle easing into the next 12 months. I think of a theme, I think of some vague ideas, I leave them to rest in my mind. There’s no pressure to HIT THE GYM or GO ON A DIET or SUDDENLY CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE BEING or DO EVERYTHING STRAIGHT AWAY or ACHIEVE ALL OF YOUR RESOLUTIONS (I think January has a very ‘capitalised’ vibe when it comes to new year’s resolutions!).
Winter is the dark time, the time when everything comes to stillness. We need this rest, this conservation of energy – we are beings like all else. The bulb planted deep needs frost to germinate anew in the spring. The energy of the earth quietens, and with it, we, and the ideas we plant in our review, quieten too. It gives us time to settle and contemplate just where we are going to go, when the days start to lengthen once more. How will we use the coming rise of energy, those long summer days? When the leaves start to unfurl, which of our ideas will unfurl along with them?In summary
October, the year-end of the wheel of the year, is a perfect time to take stock, review your past year, and to set intentions for the year ahead. The darker winter months allow your ideas or goals to mellow and rest, and in spring, it is time to act of some of these little idea-seeds that have been waiting for you.
My ‘theme’ for this year is strengthening.
What will yours be?
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Ideals and Purpose
Ideals and Purpose
I struggle with starting. Mainly, because I’m great at imagining the wonderful, perfect end result. I get so overwhelmed by that, that I can’t see where to begin! The pressure to make anything I do into something absolutely perfect is intense, and so, usually, I just don’t start at all.
The problem is, the end result I’m imagining is so HUGE and full of THINGS and very probably the end result of at least a decade of hard work. In letting myself colour in that end result, I miss out on the filling in, on the journey of getting there. All I can see is a huge wall, with this shiny thing at the very top and no way to get up there. I’ve done this with a lot of things, and one of those things is this here little blog.
The Blog and Perfectionism
Ahhhh, this blog! I registered it back in 2021, and I can’t believe how fast that time has gone. I’ve dithered about and just got so overwhelmed with the possibility, with the ideas, with trying to figure out just what to write about that I’ve basically done nothing, save a few occasional posts – and thank you if you’ve read any of them! Cutting myself a little slack, it’s been a wibbly few years, and I think this small internet space has reflected that – wibbly for sure!
I wanted it to be perfect, straight away. But I’m actually coming around to realise, there is no end result. There is no ‘finished’. It’s a reflection of me, wibbliness and all – and that in itself is perfect, right now. I need this space to come to, to dust off the virtual cobwebs hanging around the pages, to just take a breath and read a bit and chat a bit and drink tea and think. And I hope that’s what it will offer for you, too.
The re-re-re-introduction
A place of tea, cushions and cobwebs. A cosy, welcoming escape from the hubbub and shoutiness of the internet. Cats, birds, and the occasional guinea pig. Cake! Of course cake. Seasons and planting and feet in the mud. The plan is no plan, the plan is realignment, the plan is settling into ourselves. Acceptance and biscuits. Existence. Breathing out. Room for all.
Dare I say a plan?
This year is writing this blog into existence. I’m quite hoping that as the words become more solid, a bit of me will, too. Lofty expectations! But a sneaking suspicion that that might just be the right way to go. A bit of fun along the way. A lot of cake crumbs. Here’s to daring! Slowly. With tea.
Sal x
