We like to believe that we are modern. That we are so much more sophisticated than those primitive peoples who believed, ha ha ha, in mythic things like gods, goddesses.
Living inside of three worlds.
We are the people of three worlds.
One, man-made—built of power and politics, structures and stories, belief and struggle. It rises, it falls. It feels important. It shapes us, demands our attention and pulls us into all kinds of drama.
One, wild and cyclical—the turning of seasons, the migration of birds, the quiet logic of roots pressing deeper into the earth. This world moves within us, all around us, unbothered by our urgency.
One, eternal—the unseen, the sacred, the vast intelligence moving through all things. The breath before breath. The presence that hums beneath the surface of everything, always here, always waiting.
All three influence us. All three call to us.
This week, I am thinking about how to live in the in-between liminal spaces between. The thin places where three worlds meet, crossing into and out of each other. How might I live, aware of the world of men, the flow of tides and cycles - heart open to the invisible. I am wondering: Is this is the way of peace?
In the clockwork world, where the man-made meets the wild, yesterday was Imbolc. The cross-quarter day between winter and spring—a cosmic hinge, the sun shifting on its elliptical path. Subtle, inevitable. All of nature notices.
It is a time of quiet stirrings, unseen shifts beneath the surface.
It was also the tenth day of my own coughing, aching journey with a virus. Flu? Winter bug? RSV? Who knows. Yesterday, I thought my body had turned a corner. The cough quieted. I went to the movies with my husband. Even the snow was melting. Maybe the long winter was over.
Then, last night—the cough returned with a vengeance.
I went to bed early, exhausted, my body still working through whatever this was. As I drifted into sleep, my husband said, Oh, look—it’s snowing.
Great, I thought. Just great. The streets were finally clear. I thought we were done. And now, another white blanket covers the cars, waiting to be shoveled.
I’ll be honest: I am done with winter. But winter is not done with me.
The World Turns, Whether We Will It or Not
I am not in charge of the world. I do not get to say how things should or should not be. My comfort is not the gauge of what is right and wrong. It’s important I remember this as my attention turns—reluctantly—back toward the world.
I have been avoiding the news, the mayhem. I have been living with my face to the window - watching the snow melt. But I can’t do that forever. I am a part of this world.
And so, I take my gentle heart in my hands. I gird my loins. I face the world.
Oy.
And here we are, in the aftermath of another election cycle. Half of us voted for joyful, whip-smart woman. Half of us voted for grimacing, word salad man. All of us hoped that our person would make things right, make us safe, make us whole—or, whatever, great again.
Sigh. If only it were that simple.
Change has its own rhythm, its own ways. And the lesson, endlessly repeating, is discouraging: No one is coming to save us. Seriously. No one.
The other lesson, the deeper one, is perhaps more helpful - more hopeful: There is nothing to save. The world was never broken. Get out there and get in it.
As we release the illusion that we were ever waiting to be saved, let it go like breath, like last night’s snow melting in the streets, something else is already moving beneath it, whether we notice or not.
It’s not magic - just life, doing what life does. Lifing along. Inhale, exhale. Repeat.
The Ancient Cycles Still Hold
We like to believe that we are modern. That we are so much more sophisticated than those primitive peoples who believed, hahaha, in mythic things like gods, goddesses.
And yet, every winter, there they are. The dark goddess, appearing at Halloween to shuttle us all to her cave. The great mother bear meeting us there, touching our sleepy foreheads, calling us down down down to hibernate.
Oh, sure we still wake up every day and stop at Starbucks on our race to work. Oh, sure we have no time, no space in our calendar to enter the deep sleep cave of winter. Yet even as we press on, still, she moves among us, singing through the cracks in our concrete world, dancing with the plastic bags caught in the wind. We have forgotten her names but we feel her there - shivering our bones, whispering through our bodies, calling us to bed early as she lays a snow blanket over the world.
It’s not up to us. Name. No name. Bidden or unbidden. She is there. Everywhere. In the deep, instinctual pull toward rest and warm soup and retreat. In the bright wake up call of the spring.
The ancients were not fools. They knew their stories were not meant to be literal, but to honor a cosmic order. When they honored Bear as Artio, Artemis, the Great Mother of the Cave, they were not worshiping the animal itself, but the greater forces that gave and sustained life. We would do well to remember what they knew: We live inside cycles far greater than anything humans have built.
We would do well to remember what they went through: the chaos, the unraveling of institutions and civilizations. They were there. They left notes behind. What we are going through now is not failure. This is nature, doing what nature does. Building up. Taking apart.
The Vedic Yugas, the Great Year of precession, the rise and fall of empires—all tell the same story. Nothing built by human hands lasts forever. The world of men rises and falls, but the world of the sacred endures.
Civilizations do not collapse overnight. They decay over time, their institutions rotting from the inside, their myths no longer holding. And yet, within that collapse, something new is always born.
The sacred does not disappear. It flows beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to rise again. So instead of trying to save what is collapsing, we would do well to turn our attention to what is right in front of us.
A cough that will heal - with patience and salty broth.
A car that needs clearing - today.
A garden that needs tending before spring’s inevitable arrival.
The work of renewal is always close.
Let the past slip away. Turn toward what comes next, hands ready to help.
This is my prescription for what ails us now. This is the medicine offered us in the everyday world that is woven of three worlds: Notice the natural cycles. Hitch your attention to what is real.
Soon - just weeks from now, the ice will crack and melt. We’ll emerge from our winter cave, blinking in the light. The great sleeping over, we will leap and sing. But first—just a little more winter. A little more silence. A little more dreaming.
When the time is right for movement, we will know it. We will rouse and we will rise, each in our own way and time.
The great dreamer, Bear, will give way to Hare1 the wild, electric energy of spring. And Swallow, the herald, will return, singing the world back to life.
Sending you love and all the blessings of this season.
xxoo
Amy
Right now, in our Sacred Ache Workshop, we are in week two. We are sitting together in the silence. It’s not too late to join us. Learn more here.
The Celts associated hares with the goddess Eostre (whose name gives us Easter). Unlike Bear, who wakes slowly and moves with deliberate power, Hare bursts onto the scene—leaping, running, mating, multiplying, just like the torrent of snow melt, tumbling and rushing down the hills to green and renew the land.
Where Bear teaches us to retreat into the dark and listen, Hare teaches us to move, to follow instinct, to run headlong into the joy of the new season.
I needed this today. The faith based non profit have worked at for 10 years is being vilified on the cesspool site because we assist with legal immigration as we have done for 40 years. Hate, anger, lies. Today I have been doing a few things to return to normalcy - a walk, a snuggle with my cat, avoiding the news for an hour.
I love your writing: "The ancients were not fools. They knew their stories were not meant to be literal, but to honor a cosmic order." We need your voice in the world. As Peter Kingsley warns in Catafalque, we are doomed if civilization fails to connect with its roots in soul.