Feeling all the Feels? Duh! It’s Spring!
How are you doing in this unsettling time, this Spring equinox?
I find this season to be incredibly agitating, and I have been doubling down, holding space for myself and others as we suffer illness, death, and incredible loss.
I feel a wild energy right now, a deepest internalized pain in my gut that needs expressing. It wants to express and it’s coming through grief. There’s centuries of oppression for Black, brown, and indigenous folk, for women and queer folk, and for disabled folk that is wild and angry and unmetered. There’s no measuring of the rage, there’s no measuring of the grief and the loss. It has to go up and express outward, but not through destruction.
–Eleanor Elbers, Co-Director, The Center at Orchard Hill
It’s almost like the extended hours of sunshine and first flowers popping up from the hard earth mock our fury and despair and overwhelm.
This equinox, like the many that have preceded it, is not at all equanimous. There is an overabundance of –and inequity in-- suffering and illness and death.
Just as we’ve settled into –acquiesced to-- a wintry rhythm of cold days and long nights, why are we so suddenly being whiplashed with sunshine-then-wind-then-rainshowers-then-sun again?
It reminds us of the only constant we can count on: Change.
This morning, I saw the tiniest of daffodils quivering in the wind, their cheery little yellow heads bobbing up and down. What a miracle. What a promise.
(picture of last year’s crocus, ‘cuz I was too present with today’s daffodil to take a pic)
The flowers offer us good medicine. They remind us of the cyclicality and seasonality of our work, the rhythms of our lives. Waves of grief and rage will be followed by moments of joy and expansiveness. They remind us that noticing, feeling, and expressing joy roots us in the world we want to come.
Spring just keeps on coming back, all bouncy and springy.
Spring is a time when we open our doors, juice the sun, and find each other again. It’s a great time to start thinking about what our communities and organizations need to thrive.
It’s a good time to take stock and ask ourselves some questions, questions we return to over and over again as we travel around the sun and with each other:
Questions about our purpose….
What are we feeling passionate about?
What’s our shared purpose and vision for change?
How are we building relationship with groups holding like-minded visions and values?
Questions about how we work together…
How are we making decisions and sharing them?
How are we working with conflict and disagreement and having courageous conversations?
How are we cocreating together and building on each others’ ideas?
Questions about our approach and tactics…
Where do we want to go next together?
How are we working with the ever constant of change, both internally and externally?
What needs to change in our organizational structure and governance?
Questions about our culture…
How are we collectively caring for each other? Who needs additional support?
How are we creating a culture of inclusion and belonging?
How are we centering social justice and equity in our work and organizational practices?
This is just a smattering of questions that keep on needing to be revisited. What other ones are you holding? Let me know!