Seeds of Spring
on the importance of the changing seasons and my personal intentions for the Spring
I view the Spring Equinox as the dawning of a new year.
While traditional New Year’s resolutions can surely be a good thing. I’ve found it far more effective to make change and set intentions for new life directions in the Spring.
For the better part of three years I took part in Equinox and Solstice rituals. At first, hosted by a teacher of mine who was gracious enough to include me. In the last year I did this, myself and a small group of co-facilitators hosted our own ceremonies.
While I’ve lapsed at this point, and haven’t honored the changing seasons in community ceremony since Fall 2023. My own observance of these important dates are practices I hold close.
We’re coming out of the Winter, a time of inner reflection. A time of entering your own cave and witnessing the trials and tribulations of the last year. Of crafting the seedlings which will be planted in the Spring to come.
Having come from the Fall, a time of reaping the harvest of last years seeds, and the multi-year growth from those planted in years past. A time of receiving bounty wrought throughout your year, beautiful and terrible.
Summer, such time of unchecked growth, when we see our seeds sprout and reach upwards. When we celebrate life to the fullest. When we shine our own brightest expression of self through abundantly living as the person we are in the moment.
As Spring now begins, we find an opportunity to plant anew.
The chance is born to translate the lessons learned through Winter’s reflection into seeds, and plant them deeply.
For years I saw this cycle repeat itself in my life with profound impact. While results were not always pleasant, they were always productive, and leading me to shed what stood in the way of attaining those seeded intentions.
Last year was a bit different. Last year saw untold chaos in my life and my heart. It was a time of pain on trauma on sorrow on overwhelm.
What were my seeds last year?
Well, I didn’t have any.
Yo, I Fucked That One Up
Whoopsie! Last spring at this time was a mess.
It was this very time last year, when I was searching for clarity within a relationship which had begun to tear my heart in two.
It’s a long story, over-told. The bottom line is I loved this person when I wasn’t supposed to. And even worse, I told them when I’d promised not to.
It was actually just one day ago, a year back, when I sent the email about my feelings which would prove entirely disastrous. I had been so deeply confused about what to do. Deciding to simply come clean and hope for the best. Knowing that to uncork my stilted voice, would be the key for me to begin moving that energy.
Amongst this state of being — mistakes were made — rituals forgotten.
Essentially, spending the whole of my Spring in mourning and grief. Never transforming it into a healthy direction of forward intention. Just holding onto the pain and hope.
You see, they had not cut it off clean. They had been too overwhelmed to respond in whole. And they had left me hanging in wait and hope that our friendship might re-emerge.
It was March 24th when I sent that email, and the last day of July when they finally told me they were not willing to consider being my friend anymore.
With that kind of wait, and the attachment I had — the lack of other people to fill the void — I just kind of stewed in my sadness. Reached out to them a bunch all sad-like.
The only seeds I can think of, which I actually planted last Spring, are those of heartache. Along with eventual intentions for a spitefully beautiful uplevelling of my gender transition’s physical transformation.
I’m not proud of it. It is what it is. You’ve got to turn the sadness into something, I had thought.
So, let’s get spite-pretty.
Regardless, I’d spent the whole Spring in grief. Even unintentionally, I believe this is what set me on a course for the worst year of my life.
Having spent that time so lost, instead of focused on what to grow, would be the catalyst for so many things gone wrong. I’d lost my opportunity to plant seeds. Subconsciously planting those of sorrow and longing. Quite consciously planting seeds of spiteful beautification. That’s it.
Not to be judgmental. But those are bad intentions.
This led into a Summer which is an essay all it’s own. A true nightmare of a season.
My harvest last Fall — next level traumatic.
Physically assaulted, having a complete mental breakdown, lost in perpetual heartache, along with the darkest manifestations of hurt projected at that one I missed the most — unbelievable shames.
Still, throughout that season of harvest, so full of hurt and drama, I also received something quite glorious. A much needed bounty in the face of such horror.
I began to write again.
It started with an essay about my experience growing up a closeted trans woman. Then poetry, at the end of October. Totally unexpected, it had just started coming out. Really, like 100% about that turd-burglar lost friend.
I’d literally had a dream where a gong went off in my head. Woke up from the vibrations with my body ringing. Knew something had happened.
It was that night, or perhaps the night after, when I began writing. Something in me had woken up. The words were pouring through on purest instinct, coming through whether I wrote them down or not.
So, I had started writing.
Near the end of November, after hitting rock bottom in my mental health spiral, I began to write essays like this one, which would lead me out of the darkness I’d found myself in.
Throughout the entirety of the Winter, I chronicled the year of trauma which was 2024. I have been reflecting; witnessing.
I have become myself at long last.
The Writer
So many times throughout this Winter I’ve tried to pull myself away from this writing to do things which are more fun. Buying video games I never play. Sitting down to watch movies I turn off after ten minutes.
Yet, something within me has changed.
Through this work of reflection, I’ve found a living art in writing. I can’t stop. Apart from my daughter, it’s all I have.
It’s the only thing I find myself wanting to do.
Long have I known I was to write. Forever, thinking it would be through fiction and storytelling. Which, I do still pursue.
Only once having been recognized by another as having the potential to write my own story — to essentially write what I am now.
Actually doing it, I find it thrilling in ways I’d never have expected. I find myself compelled to write what is present and burning to come out for me. It surprises, excites, and enlivens me. It’s a process which I have simply come to know will never stop.
Recently, I moved. In the couple of weeks between homes, stressed with it all, I barely wrote. Still, through that time I could feel it — a fucking deluge was coming.
Since landing at this new place and settling in, I’ve begun writing prolifically.
I really don’t do much else, except for the practical things I need to as a parent and an adult human being. Frankly, there are lots of practical things I ignore to write. My laundry-mountain is growing ever larger.
This is fun to me is now.
It’s just the way I can tell I’m going to live the rest of my life. I’m a writer.
The fuel for my writing is born in my humor, my joy, my trauma, my sorrow. Grief doesn’t go anywhere. It’s something which becomes a part of you. It stays. I’m using mine. Instead of letting my grief live within me, I feel as if I’ve found a way to tap it, and channel it straight into my writing. Bypassing myself and circumventing the anxiety and day-to-day sadness it births within me, for the most part.
When I stop, I’m overcome. So, I keep going, keep writing.
The things which pour through me are often revelations to myself. Messages and wisdoms from my own heart that I need to hear. Truths about my life experience that have been in dire need of witnessing — my own.
I’ve seen the hurt I brought on myself and how it was done. The unreal bullshit of my life. Found forgiveness for myself in ways I never thought possible. I’ve truly found my voice.
And I’m ready to plant seeds for the new year.
My Seeds
This year I will keep writing. I will build routines for the rest of my life, which see me producing work daily. Which see me creating art I’m passionate about. Which see me making change through using my voice and touching other’s lives.
My intention is to write abundantly, as intuition leads me, with the hope of finishing creative projects that bring me personal growth and a sense of earnest accomplishment. I want to create work that is gratifying to write and to read. That is personal, thoughtful, funny, cuttingly truthful, and compelling.
In fact, the next thing I write is going to be funny. I’m going to have fun with it. I’m gonna take a break from this extended Winter’s worth of trauma-diving.
I’m going to have fun this year.
Joy is coming for me in this new year, count on it. Without trying to control how or what this looks like, releasing myself into the currents of my life’s river, I ask the universe to deliver the purest bliss and the greatest ecstasies of living available to me.
I’m going to relax.
In everything, I go too hard. Holistically, I move too fast.
This is my most important seed of the year. It will be the hardest for me to plant. Might take years to grow in full.
Even, and especially, in the creation of this writing. I have pushed myself too hard. It’s the addict part of my mind chasing the satisfaction of completion. Along with a part of me which looks to make up for lost time. Having spent so many years burning my energy and time and money on things I don’t need. To have found my passion so abundantly is freeing.
Yet, it’s also enflamed the completionist inside of me. The part that wants everything now. Which wants to get shit done.
The subscriber emails which go out are typically littered with typos because I’ve done successive proof-reading passes for hours, determined to get an essay done for the dopamine or whatever, and my brain is mush.
It’s the re-read hours later where I’m actually able to clean things up for perpetuities sake, which should have been my final proof-read. But I’m not good at letting myself relax unless it’s a reward for completing something hard. Often collapsing into a needed micro-nap after the work is done.
So, my ultimate intention for this year, beyond all others, is to give myself the gift of that relaxation. In writing and in all things. To let my projects and challenges be completed and faced in their own time. To stop pushing. To receive. The enjoy the ride.
Giving myself grace along the way to take moments and breathe. To lie down. To go outside and sit in the grass. To do absolutely nothing
This is the year I find myself. It’s the year I find my peace.
Also — good snuggles.
