Sacred Flame and Cyclical Awareness

Sacred flame inside me

Burns with love and strength

The flames reflect outside me

In the sunflower and prairie fire blooms

In the bright throat of the hummingbird

In the warmth of the sun

In the passion of the children

Sacred flame, sacred fire

We reflect each other

Countless mirrors with lessons to learn

Let us remember how to listen

I wanted to share this poem since it is winter and many of us who live in climates where we see a seasonal shift can struggle with the dark slowness of winter.

One of the first things I worked on after realizing I needed help with my depression and anxiety (after enlisting the help of a therapist) was to change my internal language. My entire life I spoke to myself in a way that wasn't very kind, in a way that I would never speak to another. I called myself stupid and ugly and told myself I couldn't be enough, I couldn't be loved. To exist in that space sucks. So I set out trying to change the language I used. I started out by reading "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" by Marshall P Rosenberg. This book blew my mind! It gave me a framework of understanding myself and how language effects not only myself but others around me as well. I highly recommend the read.

So when I moved to the country, after living in the suburbs and city my entire life, and we entered into our first (what some may call "mild") winter in the San Diego mountains after the rush and glory of a large summer garden, we STRUGGLED. The country is dark-there's no street lights or houses right next door shedding light (which is amazing for star gazing!). The winter is cold. After growing up in Hawai'i then living in coastal San Diego, I'd never experienced the cold and biting wind for months at a time and the occasional snow and how everything in the garden DIED and the fact that the sun was only up for 9 hours a day. The cycles of the Earth really made itself known to me. It was very shocking and I fell into what some would call "seasonal depression."

When the next winter season came my way I found myself dreading it. Especially the feeling of depression that seemed to accompany the time. My son was born in October and so I was entering into the winter having to care for a baby as well. Needless to say it was HORRIBLE. My son had colic and cried for four plus hours a day and I would be alone for a lot of that time. It was driving me insane! Literally. I catapulted into post partum depression. It was the perfect storm of sleeplessness and rage and resentment and all the things that I ignored were like a pimple that finally popped releasing this oozing pus onto the world around me. My sister, Alanna, moved to the same land in December and I was so grateful for that! She was pregnant as well, six months behind me and it was nice to know I would no longer be alone. My husband, Dan was there and supportive, but having another woman who was having a shared experience (motherhood) and who just so happened to be my sister and best friend was key.

Alanna worked in the market garden with me while she was pregnant and fell in love with working with the plants. She continued to work with me, Dan and her partner in the gardens after her daughter Luci was born and we continued on together to manage the gardens and Community Supported Agriculture veggie boxes we were growing for. She has always been a hard working, fun, curious, and positive person to be around and that energy sparked the same curiosity and gratitude for what we were doing within me. I started to zoom out and see the cycles that were happening. Spring came with increased warmth and energy, with everything beginning to grow and we were outside more and more. Summer was busy and would get very hot during the day so we got up early-which wasn't hard with babies-and came inside during the hottest parts of the day. Then back outside in the early evenings. Fall was busy with a bounty of veggies that needed to be cared for. It also brought the first frost and the death of the garden. And I could finally see that winter brought the much needed rest for both the land and ourselves after the explosion of energy from the spring, summer and fall. I had come to appreciate this rest where there was no linear time. Where I could just BE with my family and not worry about all the things on my checklist.

So, when I write that some call it "seasonal depression", I choose my language-as I learned from nonviolent communication-because changing my language also comes with a paradigm shift. I choose to accept that this cycle of winter is integral to rest. It is essential to go into the time that is cyclical, not linear. The season that brings us into introspection. The season that asks us to let go and let die what is no longer serving us. To put our energy into our roots and prune the shoots that grew that weren't quite in alignment with our goals so that in spring new shoots will grow with vigor. I'm not saying that this is easy or not scary AF, but it is vital to sustainability and regeneration of the land and ourselves to complete these cycles. If we stay within in the spring and summer always, this is when we get depletion and unhealthy soils. The same is within ourselves as stress and disease. As we are of nature and not separate from it, this world will always be a perfect mirror for us and lesson of how to move through life.

So let the sacred flame, the light within, Spirit who flows within all beings, guide you through the darkness of self and the darkness of winter, with the reminder that you are never truly alone.

*if you are struggling with depression, I recommend working with a therapist. I am sharing my own journey here, not discounting anyone else's.