Embracing Transformation and Letting Go

"Life is going forth; death is returning home."

– Lao Tzu

Embracing the Nature of Water

The energy of the element of Water is to relinquish, surrender, and let be. Imagine floating on your lilo in a river bound for a distant sea, swept clear of the banks, and at the mercy of a force as great as the stars and sun. Such an image digs into the deep abyss of fear that comes from handing over control and agency - said the butterfly to the caterpillar. However, at its truest, water comes to nurture and nourish, to push us beyond the familiar, and to bring us face to face with the type of Soul-led, intuitive creativity that can only live in the dark.

The Depths of Water: Kidney and Bladder Channels

Ruling the channels of the Kidney and Bladder housed in the back of the body, Water has a depth and an intangibility to it. Something that cannot ever be fully known or explored, held in your hands, or still long enough to understand. Its unknowability gives it a mystical nature and, by association, makes it frightening, overwhelming and borderless, while at the same time, it asks us to trust its presence and its flow in our lives at this time.

The Mystical Beira of Gaelic Mythology

In Gaelic mythology, the Queen of Winter, Dark Beira or Cailleach, a giant blue-skinned cyclops, and the mother of all the gods and goddesses in Scotland presided over the lands. Tall, old and feared by all, she brought the biting North Wind to the tempest-stricken seas, and carved the lochs and lakes that defined the homelands. Feared though she was, she was also loved and honoured as the only force strong cleave dark troubles from the past, and open you to new beginnings.

Winter’s Alchemy and the Cycle of Renewal

Mythology is filled with Winter's alchemy, with steely, terrifying beings that commanded your fear and bring you face to face with mortality - because every Winter is death itself. The land is dead, no food grows in the ground, and the sun, now pale yellow, withdraws its warmth, forcing us to withdraw and cocoon, even letting go of the edge of the river is a death,

The Inner Peace of Surrender

But it's not the end.

For death clears the illusions of the external world, it brings us home to the Spirit that sits behind all matter, and reminds us that magic is above the world of material or natural order. Winter returns us to the place before science and measurement and rules, giving us permission to not have to understand everything. We are invited to lean against the certainty that there is a deeper order of things, and we need only release our grip on endless summers to find ourselves floating, and at peace within its nourishing Winter heart.