Re-entry from the Deep

Waking the Hands, Waking the Flame

Imbolc arrives not with certainty, but with sensation.
A faint warmth under frozen ground. A loosening. The quiet knowledge that the Deep has done its work.

January did not ask me to leap back into the world. It asked me to prepare for re-entry.

At Imbolc, I did not rush the thaw. I kept myself warm while the world stayed cold, and I returned to motion gently, at my own pace, in my own way.

This year, January was a threshold month — a time of returning not to momentum, but to my body, my home, my hands. After a long season of holding and pushing, the work became smaller and more intimate: tending what was closest, listening for what wanted warmth.

Physical tending took the shape of hearth-work. Hands-on. Slow. Intentional. Even trying new recipes.

The primary project this month was modest by design: tending one small area of my home that had grown heavy with neglect and winter pause. I cleared it slowly, touching each object with a single question: Do you still belong to the life I am warming toward? What remained was not perfection, but space — room for breath, for light, for movement. A place ready to be lived in again. This was not cleaning as correction. It was preparation.

Ritual followed the same quiet logic. At Imbolc, I lit a single candle and sat with it long enough to feel my body respond. I named what had sustained me through the Deep months, and what I am now willing to carry back into the world. No vows. No urgency. Just a small flame, a steady breath, and consent to begin stirring.

Imbolc does not demand readiness. It asks only for willingness.

As I closed January and stepped fully into this hinge point, I felt the shift — subtle but undeniable. The light lengthens. The body stirs. Not into bloom yet, but into curiosity. Into motion. Into quiet yes.

I am not finished resting. But I am no longer hidden. The fire is lit. The ground is thawing. And the year has begun to breathe me back.