January Doesn’t Always Flow Forward, it Holds.

For the first few days of the new year, my city has been suspended in this beautiful and magical rime ice. It has clung to each and every branch. 

I've included a link to take in its awe inspiring presence. Click Here

Usually its presence is fleeting and temporary, melting as quickly as it arrived, however, it stayed for days, as if suspending time along with it. Offering this opportunity to deepen my relationship to the yin essence of the water element. To embrace stillness not as a practice to be used, but as a state to be lived.

Truth be told, in the past I usually only invited stillness when I knew I'd get something from it. I've had a fairly transactional relationship with it. Give a little and receive clarity or direction in return. And to be fair, it's worked. I create slow, still rituals and flow follows. I'm good at reverse engineering energetics to serve a purpose.

But that approach isn’t foolproof. Anything outside my control, anything non-transactional can’t be bargained with. And that’s where I find myself at the start of this new year.

I'm being asked to embody stillness rather than use it. To move it beyond theory and into practice. Take a risk, put my heart in it, and be still without guarantees. Trust that some seasons don't require effort. At least not in the way I am accustomed to.

To release conditions, suspend projections and wants and become comfortable with not knowing.

I don't know what will become of me as a result, and that's a little unnerving. I have hopes and wishes for what may be waiting on the other side, but at this moment, I have no assurances. I can only be.

And that, to me, is the true energetic of January, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere. January is essentially a basin. A place to pause. Nothing is demanding attention other than the act of holding itself.

Ripples of cause and effect will come. I know this. I trust this. But for now, they are not my concern. My energy doesn’t need to travel far from me. I’m tending to the basin. Being still. Reverent with the yin waters. And instead of forcing change, allowing what’s meant for me to be drawn toward me.

Trusting that clarity sometimes arrives by waiting.

A writing prompt, if you’d like to deepen your own relationship with this season:

What is January holding for me? 

What does it feel like when time isn’t pulling me forward, but resting?

P.S.  If this way of noticing speaks to you, the Elemental Print Club is a slow, monthly offering. One small print and a letter from the Elements, arriving as a gentle pause you can live with through the season. Click Here to Learn More

XO

Ashley