Try Mini-Hibernation for Creativity and Health
“Bats do it… bees do it.. even bears in dens do it, Come on my friend,…let’s hibernate! “ (Thanks and apologies to Cole Porter!)
In northern lands in this time of year the earth calls us toward a slower pace.
Animals of all kinds from insects to amphibians to mammals, large and tiny, slow down, burrow into caves and dens, and turn inward. Most plants drop flowers, leaves and stems, drawing energy earthward where it fertilizes the roots and seeds and growth of the next season.
Yet for many human creatures the winter holiday season becomes one of the busiest times of year, with celebrations, travel, shopping, entertaining and, too often, anxiety-producing schedules and expectations.
Perhaps there is a part of you that longs to slow down and turn within, to carve out a bit of time to reflect and rest and nurture your soul. Perhaps for your holiday self-care you need a little hibernation!
If so, commit to carving out an hour, a day, a weekend, even just a few minutes each day, for your own adaptation to winter’s call toward earth and rest.
Six Soulful Gifts Your Mini-Hibernation Offers:
1. Involution.
By taking the time to turn within, by diving deep into your rich and fertile inner world, you bring back gifts for yourself as well as for community. Who knows what answers and insights might be waiting in your depths? Maybe what you need for healing the past, for attracting a relationship, or solving a puzzle, maybe what the planet needs as we co-create our new story.
2. Wombing into Compassion:
Entering into deep rest and reflection you can drop into the very earth of your being, the Womb of Compassion. A friend recently told me that in Hebrew the word for womb is very closely related to the word for compassion. In the womb of your inner being, connected to the earth-womb of our planet, allow yourself to be rocked and healed, youthified and born anew.
3. Contemplative Creativity
There is a particular creativity that only comes when you unplug yourself from external stimulation, advice and reality and allow yourself to enter the greater potentiality of the Abundant Source within. Why limit yourself to that which is already created? Let this Inner Source take you into new realms, just by being available!
4. Gestation of New Life Within
The she-bear, pregnant with what will be born, ambles into her den for winter. In the dark and quiet safety of the den she slows way down, rests, gives birth, suckles her babies. What new life within you – ideas, projects, emotions, would like this quiet safety and motherly attention of den-time?
5. Deep Listening
In a world that is so noisy we all at times need a sacred space to listen deeply within.
Hibernation allows you to listen for that which has not yet found its way into the outer world, for that which you do not yet have words for, for that which longs to speak to you and through you.
Perhaps you will carry certain questions with you into your hibernation. Perhaps there is guidance you will seek.
