Sometimes the Growing Season is Long

I hope I can remember how to do this.

It's been quite a while since I've written. I walked into a dream and spent a lot of time bringing it into form. The last time I wrote, I talked about a vision I had: to hold my poetry book in my hands. It went to the publisher on Friday, just before the new moon -- a time to end one thing before beginning something new. I also wrote about how that vision included gathering people together for workshops in beautiful places. On Saturday, I led the first of these workshops in a beautiful old house in the rolling hills near New Hope, Pennsylvania. It was just after the new moon, a time of energetic rebirth and the beginning of a new cycle. Gardens, fruit trees, a pond, a beautiful and bountiful table, and a great group of women gathered for the first offering of 13 Moons: Tracking the Wild Mare.

I spent most of the week away in the mountains in a small cabin in the woods, writing and planning, thinking about what's next. Being spacious. I've needed space to meet this transition well. And I've given it to myself. I spent time poring over process books and journals, gathering goals and action steps and forming them into a plan. I spent time reading through writing journals of poems, essays, reflections, short stories, and memoir. I found this on the first pages of a journal I'm currently using. It's from March 2016:

This is the beautiful morning pages book that my daughter made for me and gave me at Christmas. It is amazing, and I thought I'd save it for something special. And then I decided that my life as it is, right now, is the special gift I have, so here it is -- open and opening to whatever new is coming. It's a good day to begin this book because I'm seeing today as a new beginning. It's the last day of new moon week -- tomorrow is the first quarter. ( Do something!) So here it is. I'm feeling drawn to doing, gently, today. I signed up for an evening yoga class. I have a list I made yesterday. I drew out the weeks before I leave for California, five of them. There's some great time here to make some changes I'd like to make. This book feels so rich and amazing. I love the size and I'm not worrying that it won't fit on my bookshelf. What beautiful pages to write upon. Yes. It feels rich. And it's indeed an auspicious time, just days before the Equinox. So many beginnings. I'm seeing some clarity around a plan coming together. And it's beautiful. There is so much wonderful potential swirling all around -- and I feel free now to take my finger and touch it. I can see a desire building to reach in and get my hands dirty, first one and then the other. And to go in, all the way up to my elbows, then to my shoulders -- then just to fall, or dive, right in, fall in and be completely swallowed by it!

Potential is a beautiful thing. It's all about creating space so something can happen. Sometimes we carry so much clutter in our thoughts, our feelings, our living space that there's no space to see possibility, no time to take time to dream and to plan, to manifest. There have been times in the last few years when I felt like I'd lost my center and had no direction, but I just kept trusting where I thought life was leading me. I was listening deeply for what was emerging, rather than trying to impose something on myself. And, suddenly, as if a mist dispelled, things became clear and I realized I was just a few small actions away from harvesting a crop that's been long in the field.

Sometimes the growing season is long.