Imbolc means “in the belly.” For me, this images the belly of the earth. The Great Goddess. It images seeds as they gradually quicken to the light–inspired by light within themselves. It images sleeping animals, dreaming of….what? Dreaming of hunger? The hunt? The sky and the rivers?

Imbolc images walnut-shaped mantis egg-sacks grafted to a thin, vulnerable twig of a bush. An egg sack waiting to hatch–spilling out a scrambling brood of rice-sized beings devoted to hiding, sudden graspings, mysterious revelations, and a kind of appetite that is endless as the summer.

It images fire in the belly. What is burning within you that needs to see the light of day? What passions are within you aching to be revealed to yourself and/or the world? What dreams are waiting for you to wake from your necessary winter sleep–the sleep of holy darkness–and emerge from their cold graves?

What awakenings of vision are opening like seed husks into unfurling, expansion, and abundant breath? What seeds are dreaming within you? What needs to be broken open?

What darkness needs traveling through, nourishing you as you go? What needs to die in order for fruit, blossom, roots, branches, fragrance, and food for all spirits–near and far, ancestral, and future–to be offered freely from slowly opening palms?

What needs to end? What needs to begin?

Who needs to become a forest, a garden, a bear?

Imbolc–In the belly.

What are you ingesting and digesting today–both bodily and spiritually that longs to be transformed into wonder, creativity, and newness–for yourself and the world?