I’d like to start writing about my spiritual life more reflectively, on a day-to-day basis rather than an abstract basis, and I thought doing some monthly notes (in the style of Leah Middleton) would be a great way to move into that.

February was a tumultuous month for me in many ways, characterized by trauma and regrowth. This trauma came into my life in the wake of a vast Saturnian work that I’m in the process of: death, crucible, rebirth. Before the trauma, I was embracing the flow of reconnection with the spiritual work, and in its wake I had the tools and context to make sense of it. The making-sense, though, doesn’t erase or undo the trauma; it only narrativizes and transforms it.

My proximity to the work has a serious ebb and flow pattern. I pass back and forth, on the scale of seasons or even years, from work to reflection. We used to call the reflection period the “fallow season”: a period where the land is left untended and unplanted to allow for regrowth and restoration. In these periods I will do very little active work and little to no ritual. I do often have deep reflections and revelations during this period, but make no progress in other ways. As I pass into the “flow” period, these revelations assert themselves and inform the more formal work. This season it began with a revision to my ancestor veneration practice, which deepens in unexpected ways all the time.

As we enter false spring, I have also been reflecting on the physical work of gardening last year, which taught me so much about the land and the flora, both native and domestic. It was my first year gardening deeply in the Piedmont, and it has so much to tell me. The first step of this year’s work is to amend the soil, which is a complicated and spiritually rich process when you engage with it on that level. For most things, planting will wait until April, but the foundation has to be laid now.

Finally, this month I reengaged with my spiritual community. I joined a group seid and laid a question before the seer. I let a second question go unasked aloud: Is this kind of work a path forward for me? Is this a service that I feel called to on behalf of my community? Trancework is something very close to my heart, and community service as well, but I have never merged the two. I am going to attend another ritual in March, and see where it takes me.