The great wheel keeps on turning, and here we are at Imbolc—that quiet, liminal space between winter’s stillness and the first stirrings of spring. The season of still-waiting. Of not-yet.

And this year, the Lunar calendar ushers in the Year of the Snake—a time of shedding old layers, healing unseen wounds, and stepping into renewal with wisdom and grace. Just as the snake outgrows its skin, this time of year invites us to release limiting patterns and move forward with greater clarity and authenticity.

For so long, years now, I have been in my own deep winter. Griefs, losses, loves—all interwoven, shaping and reshaping me in ways I never asked for, certainly never wanted. And yet, beneath the heavy, often frozen, soil of my life, things moved, nonetheless. Slowly, imperceptibly, something carried on growing.

In a world that glorifies speed, we forget the necessity of slow. The necessity of the fallow field. The required shedding, resting, letting go—so that something new, something truer, might take root.

“You cannot rush your healing.
Darkness must be honoured
before the dawn can arrive.”
—Yung Pueblo, Inward

The Snake teaches us that transformation is an internal process first. Before anything external comes about, we must first release, regenerate, and realign.

These recent years have not been about building, for me. On the collapsed foundations of my life, nothing could grow; nothing could be built. The theme of this time was about retreating to a safe space, nursing wounds, shedding identities, composting relationships, and, over time, nourishing new interests. Over and over.

For a long time, I sat, or even lay down, in the dark, waiting—professionally and personally. Hoping and trusting that when the time is right, a green shoot might appear. Perhaps even a few. And now, they have. At least in my heart, gut and imagination.

It’s taken a full year of reflection to design and present my new website—a public-facing container of the work I do and – perhaps more significantly – want to do. In some ways, my focus now is markedly different to the work I did before, even if my core skills, values, principles and many interests have stayed the course. And in some ways, much remains.

So here we are. New growth emerging from everything that came before. Offerings and services that carry the imprint of loss, yes, but also of life, love and renewal. Of endings, but also of new, hopeful beginnings. And my values and principles run through it all deeply.

“Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.”
—Mary Oliver, The Uses of Sorrow

Imbolc is a threshold. A moment to witness the quiet unfurling of life. To honour what has been and to step—gently, consciously, intentionally—into what comes next.

So I invite you: come and see what has been quietly nurtured in the dark of my last years. It is still taking shape, still finding its form, but some of it is here. Ready to engage. Ready to converse. Ready to nourish and be nourished.

And perhaps, in this moment of seasonal shifts, you might ask yourself:

What am I being invited to shed, like the Snake, in order to grow?
What needs more time in the quiet before it emerges? What must not be rushed?
What is growing in me, unseen, through the dark, despite the dark?

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
—Mary Oliver, Sometimes

And to end (just for now) with John O’Donohue, and his exquisitely succinct poem Fluent:

“I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”

Welcome to whatever comes next. May we each trust our own unfolding.

And please visit my garden when you have a moment—it is, like all gardens, a work in progress.

(PS – if you love my website, tell me, and a big thank you to TraceyKay and Nathalie at Finding Nektar for their gentle and spacious love and holding as my garden took shape. And if you don’t love my website – well, if it’s about a mistake, or lack of clarity, please tell me. And if you simply don’t like what’s on offer, that’s okay. I am alright being a bit like Marmite).