Ebb

Notes from the wild on the fallow seasons in our lives...

We’re being embraced by Autumn, the leaves have all but fallen to the ground, carpeting the pavements & forest floors in an array of yellows, red’s & browns.

The trees are beautifully bare having surrendered their leaves for another season.

The clocks have fallen back and we’ve also fallen into darkness earlier each day.

This is a time to move with the season we’re in.

To be home when it’s dark, to sleep a little longer and to lean, all the way in to nature’s way.

A carpet of leaves @ Redburn Country Park (Nov 2024).

We’ve lost our connection to nature and all that it can teach us about how to live and I believe it’s an important connection to recover if we are to flourish in life.

In our world of endless productivity, nature is calling us to move with the seasons and the flow of something so much greater than ourselves.

Something that we are intrinsically a part of.

I recently went on a silent retreat @ The Bield, just outside Perth in Scotland. I’ve been in a season of discernment about my next steps in life and work and place and I wanted to take some time aside to listen and to draw back from my everyday routine and schedule.

I met with my Spiritual Director while I was there and she invited me to write about what I felt God was saying to me. This pantoum poem came from that invitation…

Fallow

In this fallow season, help me to trust,

The ground lies fallow so the soil can recover,

This is a gift - help me to see,

Soil not forgotten, but left to breathe.

The ground lies fallow so the soil can recover,

So let it breathe. Breathe deeply,

Soil not forgotten, but left to breathe,

Your longing, I’m listening, I’ll answer you.

So let it breathe. Breathe deeply,

This is a gift - help me to see,

Your longing, I’m listening, I’ll answer you.

In this fallow season, help me to trust.

In her book, The Artist’s Rule by Christine Valters Painter, she quotes Linda Leonard,

“A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and

generation at all times…but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the

seasons…then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are

like Winter - a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation,

purification and regeneration that prepares us for the births of Spring.”

To be honest this was exactly what I had been struggling with.

I am walking through my own season of fallowness.

Of non-productivity.

Of feeling like my life was purposeless.

Of wanting it to be different.

So it was immensely helpful to me to explore this idea of fallowness and to give myself permission to rest.

In the Western world, we’ve been conditioned by productivity. To wear the word ‘busy’ like it’s some kind of badge of honour.

So here’s your permission to lean all the way into rest in this coming season. To wear the word ‘rest’ like it’s some kind of badge of honour.

To pay attention to the season we’re entering into.

To darkness.

To Winter.

To fallowness.

Let your soil lie fallow for a time.

Let it breathe.

Deeply.

And know that this time is productive in a very different sense of the word.

It’s a time for your own regeneration.

To look forward to all that might be gestating within you as we anticipate Spring.

My my cosy, candle lit, living room where I’m writing from this afternoon (Nov 2024).

Stave off the panic from your lack of productivity just for a little while. Nature has given us permission by leading the way.

Follow her lead and you’ll never go far wrong.

Allow the same time for the seeds within you to sprout once again.

I hope this speaks gently to you on your way.

Until the next time.