Captivated by sacred shifting

Living with uncertainty, the volatility of change, and listening to small talk about the weather

Our March theme here at A More Beautiful Way is “Holding Uncertainty". As the wheel of the year tips out of winter and towards spring, we’re holding space for all the unknowns changing seasons may bring. Today’s post is a guest feature by my dear friend, Laura. She is an avid gardener, a small business owner, a deep thinker, and one of my most intuitive and caring friends. When the topic of changing seasons came up in one of our recent conversations, she had a lot to say. So I invited her to contribute her wisdom here. As always, I hope today’s post meets you with connection and grace.

A Snapshot of Laura’s Garden

I’ve always been intrigued by small talk about the weather.

Lately I’ve noticed how often conversations focus on the dramatic shifts in temperature from one day to the next.

“Can you believe it’s 80 degrees today?! It was just 40 yesterday!”

It’s like, even after living through Earth’s changing seasons for our entire lives, we’re still surprised when Spring doesn’t arrive in one fell swoop. We’ve watched this every year we’ve been alive and still, we seem to have missed that this is exactly how seasons change: a couple bright, warm days; a few chilly ones and back again. In our small talk we call the weather “crazy”, missing entirely that this is exactly how it works. I wonder if, after months of cold, we’re so eager to arrive completely at spring that we’d rather just not notice or accept the chaotic in between. Even in the most physical sense, we miss that this is the way new seasons come.

This is the change we’ve been wanting. It’s happening now. It’s in the volatility.

Since we seem to have misunderstood the arrival of seasons in our physical world, I doubt that we’re attuned to those same changes in our emotional and spiritual selves. We live through them, sure. But it seems unlikely we have the tools or habits to notice. Our discomfort with unpredictability blinds us to all that happens in the transitions. Maybe this is why we resist that the change of seasons is always a bit disorderly.

How often do we miss the wonder of the unfolding because we’re waiting for something new to be here?

Many of us, in learning to take cues from natural rhythms, have grown accustomed to the idea of spiritual seasons. We know that winters come just as easily and maybe just as frequently as summers, living consciously in each season even if waiting for the next. I have been in a personal season of winter. I’ve been learning that while winter appears bare on the surface, it’s not a season of total dormancy. Last season’s fruits decay. Insects feast and mycelium grows beneath the soil. All breaking apart the dying to make it fertile and rich. And even as I honor the active, dark hum beneath the barren surface, I grow impatient for things to bloom. I much prefer the progress that grows over that which consumes. We all do.

Every now and then I have a “good” day. A sunny one that feels like budding and visible growth. And I think to myself, Oh! Maybe I’ve made it out of winter. Maybe my spring is here now. And then some cold, rainy days follow. I’m tempted to dismiss the one sunny day and assume I was wrong about spring. Like the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, “That must mean eight more weeks of winter.” But then I hear another comment about how “crazy the weather has been lately” and I remember that our personal seasons don’t arrive in a clean or linear pattern either. 

I wonder if spiritually, we begin to declare a new season’s arrival before it’s really time, ignoring or not noticing what’s really going on around us; in the same way I start my seedlings under grow lights in the laundry room while it’s still too cold for them outdoors. We’re prone to missing divine renewal as it’s happening, just because it comes cloaked in instability. We turn our attention away from extraordinary awakenings because we mistake them for fitful interruptions. 

Do we know what it means to be present in the in-between? We’ve become so conditioned to look forward and to declare new beginnings that we don’t have the tools to stay in the volatility of waiting. Yes, it’s riskier and more difficult to sit in the uncertainty, but what would we find waiting for us there? What holy magic might we only ever see by learning to live in the tension of transition? What would we find if we released our fixation on the coming season?  I don’t know for sure but I suspect there is something sacred and powerful ready for us if we can tolerate the uneasiness. Surely there are sacred thresholds and powerful learnings hiding there in the middle. 

We could choose to carry on, blind to the unfolding that’s happening all around us, looking only to what’s next. It’s important to acknowledge that there are cases when this is all we have the capacity for. And that’s worth honoring. But the invitation remains—we can to choose to expand our capacity for this messy in-between for one second longer; to take just a few more breaths here, in the tumultuous middle. 

As little seedlings begin to push their heads through the soil, maybe Spirit is gently reminding us that the change of seasons itself is worth so much more than hope of something new. Not that we shouldn’t hope for warmer days. Just that it is also worthwhile to be present in the unfolding itself. 

It is warm this week. Baby peas poke up their heads. Radish leaves grow larger. Carrots that sat still for months creep a tiny bit taller. Carpenter bees start to venture out, although there are not many blooms in the garden. Nothing ready for harvest. In the warmer weather, the bees and I get out and make way for spring. Next week it’ll freeze again. And we’ll all stay in—remembering and respecting that this too is the rhythm of seasons. 

May we release, if just for a moment, our narrow focus on “next”. May we be captivated by sacred shifting. May we sit in the tension of uncertainty. May we find magical and majestic truths there. Let Creator bathe us in wild transformation.

Beauty is not just coming. It is happening now.

Get to Know Laura

My name is Laura Green. I’m a strategist for mission-driven organizations and a cheerleader + idea doula for heart driven entrepreneurs. I am a wife and a mother to two magical humans. I love charts, sneakers, my garden & my fish tank, and a fresh haircut.

For my work, I help entrepreneurs & leaders clearly define their vision & impact and then support them in intentionally pursuing that. I create strategies that use personal values and intended impact as guardrails, allowing leaders freedom to focus on what they love with less fear and more clarity. 

I grew up gardening with my father and returned to this practice as a hobby, unexpectedly finding profound communing with the Divine there.  A More Beautiful Way is deeply meaningful to me as I journey to release expectations and pursue the things that Creator has made me to love.