Your dream is on its way, even if the ground is bare.
There is a magical meadow near my home that I walk through nearly every day. Until recently, I had to pause my walks due to the immense amount of late winter snow we received in Mt. Shasta this year. Thankfully, the snow has finally melted, and spring is steadily emerging. After such a long and harsh winter that had me questioning my choice to live here more than once, it feels like the sweetest sigh of relief to feel the sun’s warmth on my skin and witness the magic of spring returning.
Yesterday on my meadow walk, I noticed the dried out, dead forage covering the landscape that will soon come into bloom, even though it doesn’t look like much is happening. When I leaned in and gazed closer, though, I could see little green shoots of meadow-grass. I probably spent 30 minutes planted in the meadow, reflecting on the emergent bloom arising anew from the seemingly barren. What looks dried out and dead will eventually turn into rich and fertile compost that will enhance the soil with nutrients. The seeds offered last autumn have spent their season in winter’s dreaming, now rooted and ready to rise.
Perhaps the same is true for you in this mid-spring moment.
Perhaps your new beginning looks more like an ending right now…yet if you look more closely, you notice something new emerging.
In the process of endings and beginnings, in the process of completing seasons and chapters and welcoming in new ones, we are like the meadow. There are parts of ourselves, our personalities, our ways of being, our imprints, and our lifestyle that come and go. There are parts of us that were never meant to move with us into the next season. There are parts of us that are meant to return to the Earth to decay into compost.
And there are parts of ourselves we haven’t met yet. Perhaps we’ve felt them in flickers – so as they gently, gently arise, reaching towards the surface, there might be a sense of unfamiliar novelty.
Who am I becoming?
What will this feel like in full bloom?
What does it feel like now?
Why is this taking so long?
We might notice both the barren and the bloom.
The grief and the gratitude.
The bitter with the sweet.
Spring is an embodied promise that there is new light and life after the long, dark night of winter…and as we emerge into Beltane this weekend, I’m curious:
What season of your life feels like it’s ending?
What blooms are now returning to the Earth for you?
What feels emergent and new?
I’ve celebrated Beltane – the cross-quarter Celtic holiday on May 1st that joyfully reveres faeries, fertility, lovers, the Beloved, and the bright emergence of blooming – in my own way for several years now, each year engaging in some sort of ceremony to celebrate the magic of this potent time of year.
Five years ago, I wrote about a ceremony I did on Beltane to connect with the Beloved and the synchronicities that unfolded from it. In essence, that year I planned to move to London in autumn. I was calling in a romantic partner. I was calling in bold new beginnings in my life in many ways. At that time, my Beltane ceremony revealed to me a date – September 7th – as a powerful and magical date. Through the ceremony, I inwardly and very clearly saw myself in the Celtic Isles with a partner who felt like home in my heart.
So what ended up happening that year was… I moved to London. Nothing noteworthy happened on September 7th. Living in London during my Saturn Return ended up being a necessary initiation from an old way of being into the new and unfamiliar – I scratched a lifelong itch of living there and ended up returning to California feeling like new parts of me had emerged and old parts had been left to decay into compost in London. I didn’t meet a partner. I actually had a series of challenging (yet humorous) love life experiences the whole time.
I still cherished the Beltane ceremony I had and didn’t take it personally that nothing noteworthy happened on September 7th after all the signs and synchronicities I received. I moved on with my life – and as I’ve written and shared over the past few years, life spiraled on, and I ended up finally meeting my partner in a magical way when we both moved to Mt. Shasta at the same time in 2020.
I forgot about the Beltane Blessing of September 7th until last year – September 7th, 2022. My partner and I happened to be in Ireland, it was our last night in Europe from a 2-week trip inspired by co-officiating a wedding for one of my best friends in Montenegro. We decided to spend a few days in Ireland before returning home – and that last night in town, September 7th, my friend Emily, who also happens to be an amazing writer, playwright, and the editor of this newsletter, had a world premiere of one of her plays in Dublin. My partner and I had dinner with her and saw the play that night, together, on September 7th… in the magical Celtic Isles that were so prevalent in my initial vision. My enchanted September 7th evening came to be 4 years later, on the dot.
I share this sweet story with you as a reminder that while we witness spring emerge anew every year, our own lives have seasons and cycles that ripen and rot in unique timing. Just as the meadow embodies both barren and bloom this time of year, there might be parts of you moving through even bigger seasons – inside and out – and just because something hasn’t happened yet (whether you had a vision of it or not) doesn’t mean it never will. It just may not happen exactly when or how you envision.
And guess what? That’s a wonderful thing. Because it may unfold in a way that’s even better than you imagine.
We need to give ourselves the dignity of our process, celebrating exactly where we are rather than judging ourselves for where we are not. We are allowed to honor the cycles of death and rebirth, and the liminal times between. We are multidimensional, nuanced, immense beings – and oftentimes parts of us are rotting into compost while simultaneously others are ripening to eventually bloom.
What if you trusted your timing completely? What if you didn’t have to force yourself to bloom?
For me, my love life dreamseed took 7 years to come into being. And in the midst of that 7 years, I went through so many inner transformations that helped me meet this relationship with new tools, communication capacities, and intimacy with my body and needs that have helped me grow, deepen, and thrive with and without a romantic partner. This relationship arrived at the exact moment we were both ready for it.
Other dreamseeds take a shorter time to come into bloom. This newsletter, for example – I had the idea last night after spending time in the meadow, and I spent time this morning writing it. Less than 24 hours. 🙂
As we spiral into Beltane once again, I invite you to reflect:
If your life is a meadow, what is the dried out, dead forage? What is completing its cycle? What gifts and lessons does it offer as fertilizer for what’s next?
What are the tender green shoots that are just starting to emerge? If you’re not sure about the exact circumstances or vision, what are the feelings you would most like to feel right now?
If you knew for sure that your most heartfelt dream was destined to happen in ripe timing, how would you feel? How would you act? What would you do?
What seed can you plant today as a gesture of your willingness to receive this dream? Is it simply sitting in silence and allowing a vision to form? Is it saying a prayer or performing a simple ritual? Is it taking one small action to nurture your dreamseed or doing something to cultivate the feeling you’d like to move towards?
Finally, what are you grateful for right now, today? What are the gifts of this unique moment of your life? What is the good happening for you and around you? What is bringing you joy?
If you’re called to receive dedicated care in the midst of meeting endings & emergent beginnings, I have a few invitations for you:
I recently started a fairy-centric writing project on Substack called The Fairy Ring. This weekly newsletter is where I’ll be sharing even more stories like this one, oracular poetry, and musings on the ways of the fae, bee, and sea. Your $5 monthly membership helps to support my work and gives us a space to go a little deeper into ways to tend your relationship with nature and the divine - and this upcoming Sunday, I’ll be sharing a Beltane blessings & guided breath ceremony! You can sign up to receive The Fairy Ring here.
I currently have 1 space open for 1:1 Mentorship. This 6-month immersion is dedicated to your emergent becoming. If you’re yearning for a dedicated, sacred space to process the seasons of your life and emerge renewed, you can schedule a complementary feeler call by responding to this email or filling out the application form here.
The library of free Angelic Breath Healing meditations. There are over 15 guided & themed breath meditations that assist with meeting the seasons of your life with curiosity, presence, and care.
As we spiral into a new season, may you receive what you need to root, grow and thrive <3
With love,
Madeline