A Twelfth Night pause
The new and unexpected is possible when we let life - or consciousness - in
The first week of this highly anticipated 2025 has been a unexpected one for me. Not altogether welcome either, given that on the evening of my birthday just after Christmas, a familiar ache crept into my lower back. Lunch with friends the next day was uncomfortable and I longed to lie flat. The following day I realised my sciatica was back. Finding someone to help you sort that out in the midst of the winter break where I live is not the easiest. Luckily I did, sufficiently enough to regain the mobility I need to be independent, although hubby is doing most of the chores, somewhat grumblingly I have to say. Somehow it is fine when I do them, as though I had chosen that as a way of life rather than being things that simply need to get done. But that's a different story.
If I’m honest, I don't generally enjoy the end of year break. I really don't need any more stuff, or food and drink for that matter. We live well every day. Family are far and wide, without the means to all stay together even if we wanted to, and prices for everything are just disgraceful. Friends are often with their families and celebrating a birthday so close to that never works. We now try to have a short winter holiday just before silly season begins so I’m ready and rearing to get on with stuff about a month before everyone else! Maybe I should move to the southern hemisphere so at least I could be outside…
This time round, the break has felt pretty enforced as much of it has been spent flat on my back. Pain is powerful medicine if we allow ourselves to be present with it and discover what it has to show us. I don't mean being in agony of course, but just being with what is, rather than trying to mask it with medication or make it go away. So much of our modern lives seem to be taken up with masks of one kind or another - busyness, food and drink, drugs, shopping, consumerism, low-cost travel…whatever our personal preference happens to be. We spend much of our time creating lives we then try to escape from at the first opportunity that we get. I did it for years. It feels nuts now.
I've written recently about the bright, piercing light that has been flooding us over the holiday period, interspersed with periods of freezing fog. Laid out as I have been, though trying to make small regular movements to help the stiffness, this light has been illuminating dark corners I would in all frankness prefer to avoid. The problem is that the shadows in these corners tend to be our puppet-masters until we reclaim our own strings.
Prompted by some deep yoga squats pre-skiing and pre-sciatica, I've seen how I set up some old dynamics that don't help me or others involved. There is of course significant emotional, energetic release - and pain - in that enlightening. A wonderful session this morning with my amazing chiropractor who came back to town early to help me but got sick herself in this first week of 2025 was incredibly liberating. Partly for her awareness, expertise and practice, partly for the energetic resonance that naturally happens between us.
In a universe where all life is energy, the frequency of the spaces that we create between us determine our quality of life. And they depend on the frequency we are operating at. We are after all living systems, thermodynamic, electromagnetic. In my case, interacting low-frequency dynamics - tensions created over months of sitting at my desk without enough movement and joy, frustrations at the slow speed of progress, a perceived lack of time and energy to be outside, sculpt, play music, laugh and play - result in literal blocks in my lower back. They are painful, yet not too difficult to resolve when I can see into the shadows. No tech needed, no expensive analysis or consultancy (just our chiropractic sessions, without any structural manipulation). Just allowing that bright light, life, consciousness to run the show for a while. All I need to is gratefully receive the gifts, and embody what I have learned. I’d say that's a pretty damn good way to start the year.
Photo credit: Vanity Fair
Today is the festival of the Befana in Italy, the good witch in folklore who delivers gifts to children the previous evening, on Epiphany Eve, just like the Three Magi. For the month of January, I am offering five slots for one-to-one guided reflection for anyone who would like to give themselves this gift of pausing to let life in. Whether you would like something ad-hoc for when it feels right, or a regular rhythm over several months, I would be delighted to walk with you.
We'll look at what our bodies are telling us, reconnect with others and the places we inhabit, and ourselves at a deeper level to explore what is emerging. We'll also get a little lost on the way, as our thinking loosens and reweaves in a new pattern. Then what is important to us will be clearer and we'll take our first steps on a new path as it reveals itself. By letting consciousness in, we'll discover how to restabilize our daily lives, even in the face of strong winds and storms. Please DM me for details if this feels like something you'd love to do.
It's time for the exercises I want to start doing every day to keep my aging system fluid and elastic. Thanks for reading, and here's to letting life shape us, instead of trying to direct it where we think it needs to go!