Let go of exactly what people say

is most beautiful about you

I’ve had this post saved in my notes to share with you all Winter, but it is somehow only now as Spring has found its way to our doorsteps with snowdrops and daffodils and bright sunny mornings that I feel able to share.

This winter words have been ephemeral, slipping through my fingers like delicate mist. I could barely grasp a thought for more than five minutes before being pulled inwards towards a soft quietude.

A friend sent me a poem by James A. Pearson just before new year’s eve. One line stopped me completely:

Every year (the trees) let go of exactly what everyone says is most beautiful about them to save their own lives.

Ooof, it punched me deeply. Yes, I thought. YES. This is what the world is asking of me: to release all the achieving, offering, holding, giving—everything I believe makes me beautiful to others. To let go entirely and—

to drop all the ways (I've) made (myself) worth loving

Wait. That doesn't feel safe.

But darling one, I whispered to my own sweet heart: What other safety exists except knowing that simply being who you are—the friend, the daughter, the sister, the dog mummy, the lover—is medicine enough? To not have to give or share or hold or do, but to—

sit quietly right in the center of your small life.

What a gift. What a permission slip to discover the mystery that was always here.

This winter my attention has been drawn to the 36 souls partaking in our grief tending training. Witnessing their love, their grief, their determined, wilful, open hearts saying yes to feeling it all, it is the most humbling honour. It's the deepest work I've ever done, yet the hardest to put into words.

I am learning that it is in the quietest moments that that we find the deepest reverence for life. Grief work is soul work and it requires a certain amount of willingness to listen.

Only there can you cry the tears your life depends on. Only there will you find the tiny seed that holds the whole mystery of you

Well done on navigating these winter months dear one.

I wonder what riches have been alchemised in the dark.

I wonder in what direction your new roots are growing.

I wonder what wants to birth forward into spring.

With love,

Nici

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WINTERING

By James A Pearson

Now the leaves have fallen.

The trees have pulled their aliveness

back in from their branches,

down into their fortress trunks

and the dark, subterranean closeness

of their roots.

Every year they let go of

exactly what everyone says

is most beautiful about them

to save their own lives.

The time will come

when you, too, have to drop

all the ways

you've made yourself worth loving,

and finally learn how

to sit quietly

right in the center

of your own small life.

Only there can you cry the tears

your life depends on.

Only there will you find

the tiny seed

that holds the whole mystery of you

and cradle it

in the warmth of your body

until the spring.