Fallow time within seasonal change(s) challenge me.
I have thrived and learned in a remarkable flow of events these last several weeks. All of that remains with me, within me, and yet I am restless. I feel out of focus, sad, maybe even a little rudder-less now. I’m still weary from previous intensive output, so disinclined from activities of persistent focus. I struggle even to read for long-ish periods of time. Yet I’m no longer weary enough to halt the feelings of I should be about something meaningful now. All signs of fallow time for me. Invitation of Spirit to let it all be, to await (however impatiently) for direct Invitations into something new.
I’m not very good at fallow time.
I have found myself thinking about the circle, both the ones I spent years calling-tending and the newer ones in which I was called, tended. What would it be for me to call a leadership listening circle in this season? Perhaps for Winter Solstice? Is that what I yearn for, or is that simply a signal of grief, missing that juicy feminine space we co-created together for so long? Or what would it be to reach out to newer circle friends, some of whom I’ll see on Zoom even this Friday for our Hope Springs Coffee Club? Something in me knows I could do both of those things, while another something in me urges a quiet, a willingness to rest in the fallow here within and around me.
I’m not very good at this willingness...yet.
One of the Beloved Community cohort completed his dissertation defense in Baltimore-area yesterday, which was marvelous to behold, even from my Zoom-required location in Ohio. I could feel in my body the sense of the pilgrimage community gathering. I ached to be in the room, to celebrate and to hear the informal banter too.
Maybe I just miss my friends. Being a part of a community that is more than what I’ve known here in Ohio.
I have good work to do today, “more important than how I may feel about it on any given day,” (felt with the gratitude Fred Craddock offers in his daily prayer.*). I have the spaciousness to return to some writing, perhaps some ‘creative renewal’ resources to poke into this ennui.
And I again have a quiet confidence that there is a web of belonging all around me, even if I cannot see or feel it at the moment. And there is the so-familiar, compulsive urgency within me to be useful.
Welcome the restlessness, then. Trust the divine order of things, that I will move when beckoned. Be in gratitude for this fallow time, post-harvest.
Trust.
*Fred Craddock's daily prayer (portion): Dear Lord, Thank you for good work, which is more important than how I may feel about it on any given day…
Comments