01 Mar March: Dream for the collective

Every horse should be able to run full speed,

and know the beauty and wonder of it’s

strength.

-hafiz

These words by Hafiz fill me with a kind of longing, how wonderful it would feel to be able to run at full speed when we are a year into most restrained and cautious time of our lives. Early spring has the kind of energy that wants to move us, we can see it in the bright yellow faces of the first daffodils and the violet pop of crocuses. Winter is coming to a close, we are both changed from our time of restraint and still living it.

Even as the spring returns to the Northern hemisphere with its abundance of new life, we may have some processing to do around what has passed away.

Nothing is the same as it was. The “strength” we once experienced may have been in  crowds of strangers cheering for our home team or mingling closely with like minded people in restaurants or clubs, it may have been in hugging as a way to say hello or stepping off of a plane in a place we’ve never been before. This kind of “strength” is decidedly not present in our current reality. March is for many of us the time when the pandemic ramped up and will likely will bring up memories, and even triggers of the “before times” and the fires we have walked through. We may have grief to work through of all that we have lost individually and collectively.

Something that is miraculous to me is that even when it feels like the world is unrecognizable,  the ground softens every spring and mint grows in my front garden. That which looked completely dead over winter stubbornly begins its rebirth without any help from me, just like it does every year. I find deep comfort in the fact that there are cycles and seasons so big and vast they are undeterred by human dramas and pandemics. They have the power to put us back in the place we belong, connected to and impacted by every other living thing.

It is, and has been a lonely time, we have had to refine our ability to maintain distance, and boundaries, and that has not been easy, or fair, but born out of necessity, yet I can’t help but feel as though we are being retrained to be more considerate for the greater community, even if it feels hard or unnatural to the pioneering spirit of individualism that has played so prominently in our culture. It may seem like our dreams have been taken from us, along with the future we thought we knew yet the energy of March is coming in clearly stating that this is a time to dream and believe that our dreams will come true, not from a place of fantasy and delusion, but though a deeper appreciation to who and what we love. And as our dreams expand to include the well being of others as well as ourselves we will discover that the dreams of others will help us rise beyond what we could achieve alone. We don’t lose by relaxing into the collective, we gain strength we never knew we needed.

Like the stubborn mint that continues to flourish, we will also find a way to do so— even if it’s in a way we couldn’t have imagined before.

This season will be different, because we are different. This past year has changed us all.

Pain and grief will arise where we feel that most deeply, but there is also an invitation to look around and acknowledge the incredible, necessary, compassionate changes that have and are taking place, and that the future is wide open with possibility!

As I wonder what it will feel like when we are allowed to run at full speed again having lived through these times of immense change and pressure, I hear from the energy that we “aint seen nothing yet,” and that we can wait in eager anticipation for incredible experiences to come.

This time of great restraint will lead to a time of great expansion, beyond what our minds can imagine, we may have only met these places in our dreams, but our hearts know how to walk us forward as our dreams become reality.

We will again, know the beauty and wonder of our strength.

With love,

Jacqui