Warming the Bones Time
photo collage by me ©2020, Seal Skeleton + Canva fire image artists unknown
When the earth-axis moves us into deep Winter, or when our own inner-seasons speak of spark + incubation, we can trust: It’s Warming the Bones Time. Contrary to popular belief, Spring and its upward-outward energy is not, in fact, upon us. It’s The Quickening we feel.
A sudden pulse will soon appear in the year, and we know it.
Because we’ve been well trained to produce as much as possible in as short a time as possible, it’s quite easy to rush forth into our plans and projects, often putting too much pressure on what’s still being conceived and gestated. In our ambition, we’re prone to begin too many things at once or, to delay moving closer to what we really long to create, out of fear of the yet-unknowable and un-guaranteed potential that lay before us.
The truth of it is, even if we’re continuing on with last year’s projects, something in us has changed, shifted, transformed, shape-shifted.
We need to give ourselves time to warm up to the new, the burgeoning, the rising, budding, and eventual fruiting that will ask much of us in coming months.
This feels more true than ever this year; we’re emerging as something new, collectively and individually. But we can’t see quite the shape of it. Whether we find ourselves the archetypal Fool or High Priestess at this stage in our journey, in fact we’re all strangers in a strange land.
New projects, endeavors, love affairs and babies can be conceived any time of year, of course. The seasons are always spiraling in and through each other. In fact, it’s important to notice and honor the Quickening Time, the necessary Warming of the Bones of any new idea or endeavor. But the great power of quickening (signs of movement, sudden appearance of heart beat) can be most intimately known and effortlessly harnessed here in the late Winter weeks.
In my ancestral Celtic tradition, we call this time Imbolc. Occurring on February 1st, Imbolc literally translates to “in the belly.”
Worldwide, many traditions acknowledge and celebrate the still-ambiguous promise of the return of Spring. Like the twinkling, nervous, almost superstitious feeling you have when you tell or hear that a loved-one is pregnant, the returning light is becoming more visible, but how and what will be manifested still needs to gestate within us… so vulnerable yet vigorous too. Aided by Mystery, creative babies need to be “fully cooked,” as expectant mamas might joke. It’s crucial that we maintain clear channels, soft wombs, strong bones for such cooking to happen.
Imbolc is a time for discerning and deciding and also — allowing.
To harness the power of Imbolc-time, we need a homecoming, need to be found by our wholly unique pelt— need to warm the bones of our vision, and trust nature to do the rest . . .
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Recently, I went wandering on the Land, asking to be found by something or someone.* To ask to be found by, rather than to find, is a dangerous proposition and a decolonizing act. To be found by Nature is to understand that it is not only you who are seeking but that you are also being sought out. To ask to be found by is to open yourself to discomfort and ego-danger. But the benefits far outweighs the risk— it changes everything to remember and be remembered by the world so.
Contrary to the individualistic nature of our conditioning, one which makes us feel as though we are very separate from the natural world, it can be somatically jarring to suddenly become aware that we, too, are watched, tracked, hunted by the living, breathing consciousness of the world. It’s both humbling and invigorating to know that the messages we may receive, when we go out looking to be found by something/someone, do not wholly belong to us. They belong to the Soul of the World, which has its own experience of quickening. The “natural world” paradoxically longs for human participation and will carry on with or without us. That’s why we feel either / both panicky and vitally exuberant around the Quickening, around Imbolc. We want to belong; we’re made for it. We long to conceive alongside the greater, hemispheric Quickening.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
On the day of my wandering to be found, a remote stretch of shoreline appeared in my mind as I was putting on my coat, and so I drove out there, delighting in the great honor and luck to live with this sacred island for a while. I don’t know what I expected to be found by, but certainly nothing so mythical as what found me.
I step out of the Jeep, walk a few steps onto the sandy beach and speak aloud my intention to the grey sky, the lonely seaweed deposits, the scattering of cracked shell. I don’t have to go far. In fact, I can’t remember a more instant encounter. Like the Deer who, after being hunted for many days, decides to give herself wholly to the Hunter, there I was— suddenly aware that Mystery has been tracking me closely and now, an honorable surrender is in order. I walk only 100 feet or so onto the beach before she comes into view: the fully in-tact, breathtaking skeleton of a Seal.
I spend a long time with Seal Skeleton, listening. Seal wants Song; I sing. Seal needs dance; I dance.
Seal wishes for funeral rites; I do my best to speak the words. I feel the broken heart of the world there with us. And I feel the truth of it all— stripped to the bone we are, so much exposed, necessarily. So much death. And yet, the exquisite movement of Seal’s long, graceful body is there in my hands. I gently move her vertebrae, having to use both hands, so heavy is she. I do so, not to disturb her, but to honor her like a child filled with wonder at this miracle— how the bones, one of the hardest materials on Earth, are nevertheless this flexible structure which animates and supports all movement, all dance. This osseous matter, making strong passageways through which our voices rise and make contact with the cold, Winter air, stuns me with Wonder. Without this agile structure, there is no backbone to our dreams: Warm the Bones.
I pray. And, after a long while, I leave with new questions in my heart. The next day, I feel called to be found again, despite myself. Not to find more, for I felt fed to the brim. But to go deeper with what had found me. I go to be found by a threshold.*
Do I dare go back to this holy place, knowing the moment of yesterday would not be the moment of today?
But, as if the Jeep were driven by Mystery, I land again at this far place, except this time, a ways-down-shore. I begin to walk, as if possessed by must-ness, in the direction of Seal Skeleton. Up ahead, I see a man dressed in black leaned over something, working at it. Was he leaning over Seal? Was he the threshold I would be found by?
As I approach, I find myself both hoping he won’t leave and anxious about having to interact. We’re all so on edge, all holding so much. How often do we see each other now and cross the street, move away, mask-up, avoid. All necessary on some levels, and also devastating.
But out in bright open Winter’s day, we have the rare conversation. He is not, in fact, bent over Seal. He’s busy untangling a mess of ropes the size of a walrus. He’s about 50 feet or so from Seal skeleton, which now has a large circle around her on account of my dancing the day before.
The man had been here yesterday too. Perhaps he, too, was moved by Seal Skeleton. He says, dismayed by all the debris on the beach, that he’d resolved to come back today with the proper knives and tools, and clean up a bit, starting with the monstrous, tangled rope-walrus. The sacredness of Seal Skeleton dances between us— how she’d found us both, cracked us open. It felt like a secret between us not to be spoken. His voice betrayed the warm, undulating tones of a true Southerner, and I felt myself moved by the whole scene, fully kindred to all present and to this particular epoch.
I’ve just met the proverbial fisherman, I think, as I saunter on after our exchange. Just like in the many tales of the lonely fisherman: sorting this from that, untangling the mess, clearing debris, catching more than he bargained for— all powerful metaphors for how to come home to ourselves so that we can, in fact, sing and dance over and warm up the bones of our vision.*
And then, about 100 yards further down shore, I’m once again stopped in my tracks.
I stand fully stunned, tears welling in my eyes as I take in this threshold, this One Who Found Me, this One Who’ Been Hunting Me. I'm overcome by a sense of home-coming and belonging that’s hunting us all. This one, who has her own stories, her own myths and her own future to be lived, nevertheless in that instant, becomes a part of me. And now, she’s a part of you, too. She’s finding you, right now, in this instant.
I look back down the shore, and can just barely make out the features of Fisherman’s face, still busy with his task. I turn back and close my eyes. After a few minutes, I opened them again, half expecting her to be gone. But there she lay: a fully in-tact Seal pelt. As if a Selkie herself had just slipped out of it, I marvel at the pelt’s shape, her claws, and also— her absence. Where is she right now?
The Selkie are mystical creatures known well to the Scots and other northerly peoples.
Selkies are Seals-people who can slip their pelts and shape-shift into beautiful humans, coming ashore on the Solstices to dance and cajole with human lovers.
But many-a-tale tell of the Selkie who loses her pelt, or has it stolen from her by a lonely fisherman. It is her human child who finds her pelt for her, and allows her to return to her true nature, and to nurture the world in the way that only she can and in no other way. She returns to the depths but the child continues to be mothered— by the wild world, by her frequent returns to the surface and by his own enactment of Mystery out in the world.
I spend a long time with Seal Pelt, spend time being with being found by such a mythos. When I finally feel it’s time to go, I pass by Fisherman just as he’s hauling the last piece of roped debris away. We nod knowingly to each other.
Once again, I pray. And I leave with new questions in my heart, new tales to tell about the quickening of things, the warming of bones, the finding our way home to ourselves, largely through the heartfelt tending of our own creations— human, seal spiritual & soul babies…
Here are just a few questions to help you be with Imbolc season, and warm up to your vision for the year by coming home to yourself, letting your true nature find you & being present with the bones of your most beloved projects:
If my pelt is all that I need in order to come home to myself, to be my most authentic, wild self, then what is my pelt made of?
What does “singing over the bones” of my dream mean to me?
Spend some time visualizing in detail all that you’re wishing to happen this year and beyond. See yourself moving through challenges, surrounded by love and support, and experiencing great joy. Then, move your vision~ dance it, literally sing it out, drum, paint, sculpt… move into alignment with it in other-than-cerebral ways.
How does getting to know the bones of my vision (e.g. how it works/moves/functions, honoring structure and form) really help me quicken my idea? What are the bones of my vision / dream?
*The recommendations to wander to be found by something / someone & by a threshold were given to me by two of my mentors, both Soul Initiation Guides through The Animas Institute, where I’ve been studying nature-based personal initiation and trainings in guiding others in soulcentric and earth-rooted self-actualization.