Dear Tender Being,
Thank you so much for joining me for a second episode of the podcast! And for the first Celtic Wheel episode.
I hope you enjoy it and would love to connect with you further. I’ve included the prompts, as well as some additional ‘shuttles’ in case you’d like these to help you keep weaving the thread of your responses.
Prompts:
* Where am I noticing signs of growth already?
- I have grown…
- I am growing…
- I am becoming…
* What nurturing do I need to support my growth?
- I need to have…
- I need to keep…
- I want to offer myself…
What comes up for you with these prompts? How do you feel drawn to respond or engage with them? You might like to journal, or draw, move your body or simply sit in quiet reflection with whatever arises.
I have also linked below the resources mentioned in the episode and the transcript.
Thank you again for being here, all my warmest wishes,
Harriet
Resources for learning more about the Celtic Wheel -
Lia Leendertz Substack, podcast and Almanac books
Rebecca Beattie’s book The Wheel of the Year: A Nurturing Guide to Rediscovering Nature's Seasons and Cycles
Seasonal Cards from Wild Fen
Brilliant article by Chetna Mehta with the wonderful spring quote:
Transcript -
Welcome to tender being with Harriet Hamid-Collett. Join me Harriet as I explore the big feelings and the small moments, connecting the supportive practices with nature in the seasons, and with an inspiring community to soothe, validate, and warm our tender hearts Welcome back for this second episode of the tender being podcast.
Thank you so much for being here. And welcome to the first Celtic wheel episode, I'm very excited to talk to you about the spring equinox. And for those who know the dates, I know that this is a little bit late, but I'm just giving myself some grace around that. And being thankful that I got the episode done at all. So thank you for your understanding too in advance.
So for anyone who isn't aware of the Celtic wheel, sometimes called the Wheel of the Year. This is an ancient way of marking and celebrating the changing seasons of the year. So within the Celtic wheel or the Wheel of the Year, there are eight different festivals. There are two equinoxes spring which is where we're at. And then on the other side of the wheel, there's autumn, then there's the two solstices. So you may have heard of winter solstice and summer solstice, which are also opposite each other on the wheel. If you imagine kind of eight spokes on a wheel, that's what it looks like. And then between those are the four fire festivals. So there's bealtaine, llamas, and sourin and Imbolc.
I learned about the Wheel of the Year, a couple of years ago, and I at that point was really needing a connection to nature feeling quite lost and wanting to see signs of the turning of time and the seasons changing. And it just became a really helpful model and path kind of prompt from nature to follow for me. And so I started running sessions on this and haven't looked back since.
If the wheel of the year is something that you'd like to learn more about. I will put some links in the show notes for resources, or books and podcasts and different bits if you'd like to explore it further.
For this episode, I'm going to talk to you about the spring equinox. So this year that landed on the 20th of March for us in the northern hemisphere, and the equinoxes. So there's the spring equinox and the autumn equinox. And these are days that mark when the day and night are equal. So there's quite a strong theme of balance within these. The spring equinox, sometimes also called Ostara, is the midpoint between winter and summer. So this is the point at which the days are growing lighter and longer. And we see the signs of spring. So there are themes of birth and energy and growth. And it's quite creative, potentially time. There's a kind of feeling of the building energy sometimes called the quickening, which is really interesting for me now reflecting on because that's also the name that they use when you first feel the movements of your baby when you're pregnant. So there's almost this sense of feeling that energy under the ground, ready to be birthed out into the world, this kind of rumbling and growing sense of quickening and energy.
As I mentioned, I hold events that are around the themes of the festivals of the Wheel of the Year. And these events are kind of a mix of circle space and meditation and journaling prompts and they have a similar format each time but we explore the different prompts from the festivals. I haven't actually run one since Loma since back in August due to having my baby in September. But I really love these events. And there's a really beautiful community that's built around these of people who regularly come and attend. There's always a mix of these regulars and then some newcomers, and everybody's always welcome and welcoming. And I always leave with such a full heart from everybody's beautiful sharings and the way that people show up and hold the space for each other.
And within these events, they're often quite large groups and we have a limited amount of time. So I want to make sure that I hold it as a spacious and slow space and make sure everyone's got time to share everything that they would like to share. So I don't always join in with my own sharings. If we have a smaller group than I will, I will join in and I will share. But in the interest of spaciousness when we have a full full group, I don't do that. So my plan for these podcasts the Celtic wheel episodes is that this can actually be a space to share some of my reflections that I would use for the prompts section of the event. So often people would do journaling, but you can use the prompts for reflection for the creative output, whatever they inspire you to do. And then we would go around and share. So my thinking is that this can be a space for me to share my responses to the prompts. And then I will also include them in the show notes, and they'll be in the transcript of the episode. So if you'd like to come and join in, then you might be someone who's not able to join us at the live events for different reasons, you could come and hold a space with us in the comment section, where you can send me a message, and we can connect about your feelings about the prompts, what came up for you, or you might have responses to my sharing. So yeah, I would love to create this kind of interactive engagement around this.
The first prompt is “where am I noticing signs of growth already?”. And it was interesting for me thinking about this prompt, because actually, I realised that I had been feeling this sense of the opposite kind of sense of shrinking of, I guess the life with a baby is there are more limitations in terms of just the ease of decisions and the ease of kind of doing a lot of things, everything's a lot more complicated, I have a lot more responsibility. I have a huge amount of love. But it's was interesting that the idea of growth made me think about shrinking actually.
And I think it was also helpful for me to reflect on the fact that it kind of felt like quite a brutal change from not being a parent to being a parent, I found that very disorienting, I've written about that in my Substack quite a lot. And talked about how I really felt very validated and seen by the work of Lucy Jones and hubback matresence. But it's kind of this immediate, change this, just one moment, and then the next and your identity has completely shifted, and kind of feeling my the rug pulled out from under my feet. But also, this reflection of now six months in six and a half months in that actually there is the growth and that I'm growing into a parent. I kind of suddenly took on the mantle and it felt very heavy and overwhelming and it still does, but I can feel I'm slowly building a foundation of a bit more understanding of who I am, of who my baby is a bit a little bit more confidence growing day by day. Just some little building blocks, some little buds of understanding and confidence kind of creeping through and feeling a little bit more grounded in it all.
I'm also reminded of a really amazing quote that was in a substack article by Chetna Mehta that has really stuck with me. The quote is, “when a seed sprouts, it's a violent process, the skin breaks and splits into something dies and something is born.” this quote is from Michelle Cassou. And I felt like this was a really important part for me of my experience at the moment of matresence. And also matresence while witnessing a genocide and the juxtaposition of kind of feeling like life is going on while it's not for so many people and just the grief and difficulty of that.
And just this point that spring isn't necessarily this just positive time of flowers and sunshine, it actually can have a darker side. And this is true of nature. Generally, I think we sometimes like to think of nature as this purely good, benevolent thing. But there's a lot of darkness in nature too. And that doesn't mean that we can't learn from it. So I really appreciated this quote, and also, the article is brilliant. So I will link that in the show notes.
But I do feel some sense of growth in non conventional kind of way, I feel like I'm growing in my capacity to accept imperfection, mainly through being forced to kind of just move forward, I can't, I can't sit around because I have to have to keep going and be busy with with the little one. And I have limited time limited resources. And there's a lot of high emotions, and a lack of control. So I just have to do my best and kind of root back into the fact that my motivations are good. And try to find some kindness for myself. Within that, can because I found that since becoming a parent, I've really had some of the most self critical inner dialogue, like I've really surprised myself with some of the ways I've spoken to myself, it's been very unkind and very lacking in self belief as well. And I think that comes from a lot of internalized stuff that doesn't align with my values. So I'm trying to bring awareness to that. And just gently nudge forward the kind of quiet, brave voice that challenges this, as I'm keeping going.
The second prompt is “what nurturing do I need to support my growth?” So I kind of touched on this already, in my last answer of that I need to speak to myself a bit more kindly, I need to be aware of the insidious ways that internalized nastiness from society is showing up for me. I guess potentially, because I'm feeling more vulnerable, probably because I'm having less sleep, so maybe less able to notice it before it kind of grows and snowballs. So yeah, speaking more kindly to myself and trying to challenge the horrible stuff that comes up.
And then another way that I feel like I need to be a bit more nurturing is to give myself a bit of a break from input of stuff, a bit of time for just quiet, and reflection, as much quiet time as you can have with a young baby. But even when I'm with my baby all day, there are moments when I'm feeding him or he's napping on me, and I'm automatically going to social media or TV and always taking in a lot of stuff. And there's obviously a really important need to be updated about what's going on in the world. And I want to maintain that and make sure but I want to do that in an intentional way. And make sure that I'm actually using my energy that I have, in a strategic way where I can make sure that I'm taking actions, keep writing to my MP, building community and not just falling into the pattern of taking in information all the time, because I think my brain is exhausted, and I'm not really taking it in very well.
And I don't always need to be consuming stuff. I think it also maybe comes from a sense of feeling like I need to always be developing and bettering myself. And there's maybe a kind of exaggeration of that or kind of worsening of that because of not working so much at the moment because of the baby. And again, that's not something that aligns with my values. So I don't want to be listening to that pressure that is showing up for me. So I'm going to try and be a bit more mindful of having quietness, just letting my brain be quiet, letting it reflect on the information that's already taken in.
I also want to do keep remembering that making mistakes is how we learn. Because I'm making mistakes all the time, there are so many micro decisions. There are so many ways in which I can't yet fully communicate with my baby. And I'm not hearing what he's needing from me, but I'm trying my best. And I'm coming back to this sense of compassion that I need for this again, just knowing that my motivation is good. And I'm showing up and I'm learning and just taking it bit by bit.
And I also want to offer myself more opportunities for connecting with community in whatever way I can make that possible. And that feels quite exciting to be starting, invest and hopefully starting conversations around the podcast. And I've really enjoyed connections with people on substack. And that really works for me, because the asynchronous way of it means that I can come and try to give my full attention when I have the spaces. And I know that I'm not letting people down in the times when I can't give my full attention. So yeah, reconnecting with community and bringing some kindness. So those are my sharings my reflections for the Spring Equinox 2024.
Thank you so much for listening. And if you'd like to use these prompts for yourself, I'm going to put them in the notes below. And I would really love to hear any reflections that you've got. If you'd be happy to share. You can comment or you can message me and thank you so much for being here sending you spring equinox blessings, and looking forward to connecting with you again soon.
