Right now, deep beneath the late winter soil, billions of seeds hold their potential in perfect stillness, waiting for the exact conditions they need to crack open and begin their transformation.
We cannot see this vital work happening in the darkness, yet it’s essential for new life to emerge.
Just as we wouldn’t dig up a seed to check its progress or try to force it to grow faster, the grieving process requires this same patient understanding.
The early days of spring often bring false starts – warm, promising days followed by unexpected frosts – much like the journey through grief.
You might think you feel ready to emerge, and take a few steps out into the world, only to be met with a wave of sorrow or overwhelm that sends you back into your protective shell.
When this happens, you may feel that something is wrong, or that you’ll never recover.
This natural ebb and flow is not a setback but part of the sacred rhythm of transformation.
Our modern society, disconnected from natural cycles, often operates on an unspoken timeline for grief, with misguided and rushed expectations about when someone should “move on” or “get back to normal.”
The pressure to return to work with full functionality, to resume social obligations, or to stop talking about our loss can feel overwhelming and invalidating.
It feels that way because it IS invalidating, it’s unnatural, and in my opinion, it is BS!
This societal push to accelerate through grief can create a secondary layer of suffering, where we feel we must hide our authentic experience to meet these external expectations.
This societal push to “get over” grief also reflects our larger cultural disconnection from natural rhythms and sacred processes of transformation.
This disconnection doesn’t just hurt grieving individuals – it’s the same mindset that has led to environmental destruction, as we try to force natural systems to operate on our accelerated timelines rather than respecting their inherent rhythms.
When we push people to speed through grief, we’re essentially applying the same industrial mindset that clear-cuts forests because it’s the “most efficient”, and extracts minerals at a pace that doesn’t allow for human sovereignty and well being.
For example, research what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – a rainforest larger than the Amazon – right now – and for the last many years – so we can all have the latest iPhone . It’s horrific.
In cultures that maintain a closer connection to natural cycles, there’s an understanding that transformation requires darkness, stillness, and time.
Just as seasons aren’t seen as something to “get through quickly,” grief isn’t viewed as something to rush.
These cultures often have elaborate rituals and ceremonies that honor the full arc of transformation – including the necessary descent into darkness when you experience a major loss or trauma.
But in our fast-paced, productivity-focused society, we’ve lost this wisdom.
We treat grief like an inconvenient interruption to “normal life” rather than recognizing it as a sacred initiatory process that fundamentally changes who we are.
We expect people, including ourselves, to “bounce back” quickly, just as we expect immediate responses to emails or next-day delivery of packages.
This rush to return to “business as usual” reflects our broader cultural inability to honour natural cycles of death, renewal, and transformation.
We need to give it TIME.
And yet also, much like tending a garden, in tending to grief, we must understand both the conditions that support growth and recognize when something needs gentle intervention.
Being stuck often involves rigid thinking and repeated patterns that create stagnation, while taking needed time involves active processing, even if it’s happening in the darkness, unseen.
If you feel that you are stuck in grief, or would love more support in this journey, check out our Return from the Underworld course, or for a smaller dose of reflective support, our monthly journal prompt.
Journal prompt & practice for late February:
February is a time of the light returning in the Northern Hemisphere. In old Ireland, folks celebrated Imbolc around early February as a midpoint between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Imbolc translates more or less literally as, “milking” as the milk would begin to run for the first births of early spring in the fields.
And yet, as mentioned above, this season is one of emerging and retreating again, and is reflective of the nature of grieving in many ways.
When we are grieving, and really always, it is important to find time to retreat, to slow down, and to reflect and feel our feelings.
If we don’t give ourselves the space to feel our grief, we lose track of the ability to feel anything.
We lose our ability to feel joy and connection, and it can be very difficult or impossible to feel a connection with our beloved dead, because to feel them, we have to be able to FEEL OURSELVES.
It’s a seemingly weird paradox that we have to let ourselves grieve that our beloved dead are no longer in a body that we can hug, in order to be able to feel their Spirit.
Slowing down and feeling is critical to maintain a connection with ourselves, each other and especially our beloved dead.
This practice is designed to help you slow down and feel, but in a contained way so it doesn’t become overwhelming.
Choose 1-2 of the prompts below & you will set a timer for 5 minutes. Begin writing when the timer starts, and stop when the timer stops. Pause, breathe, & feel what is happening in your body. Breathe, feel, and put on your favourite music and dance/move/shake your body for another 5 minutes.
PROMPTS:
Choose one or two of the following journal prompts:
I remember…
What I’m grateful for is…
What I really need now is…
When everything is quiet and still, I feel…
______________________________________________
Great work. Pause, breathe, & feel what is happening in your body. Breathe, feel, and put on your favourite music and dance/move/shake your body for another 5 minutes.
And then…don’t forget to stop and smell the roses…
With Love and Gratitude from the Dark Woods (quietly stirring with early spring…) 🌱🌱🌱
Josea & the Dark Woods Team
