Brigit Anna McNeill on Hearing the Wild and Natural Call to Go Inwards

Our modern western culture has grown to value spring energy above all else – forever young, forever upward, forever producing, forever shining.

Yet when we look outwards into the heart of nature, we see that this is not only damaging, but unnatural. And when we also look into the heart of our own nature, we see this way of being is exhausting and also unnatural.

The seasons that move around us, move within us too, deeply affecting our psyche, our bodies and our spirit, with the way they shift and change the energy and scenery, they show us that the journey of being human is not linear, but cyclical.

Autumn and winter especially tell a very different story to that of our modern cultural narrative; they show us that to know ourselves and where we wish to head, we need to spend time tending to our roots, our dark matter, in order to tend to our future paths.

Yet we are often shamed for being different, for resting, for being quieter, for going inward. And if we depend on our spring energy to be pleasing, liked, approved of, or to fit in, then autumn and winter can be especially triggering both personally and culturally. People can end up thinking there is something deeply wrong with them when they don’t want to keep partying, being outward, being golden, being the same – day in, day out.

But maybe there is something deeply right with them instead. They are hearing the wild and natural call to transition, to go inwards, to descend, to quieten, to listen, and to feel; to compost away the old, to fall apart, to change so the seeds of becoming may thrive.

What if more people stopped gaslighting their inner autumn and winter, and instead allowed themselves to explore it rather than hide it.

What if they realised there is nothing wrong with them, that maybe they are more attuned to the wild’s way, to their human way, of embodying alchemy.

– Brigit Anna McNeill
via Facebook
November 9, 2022

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Brigit Anna McNeill on “Winter’s Way”
• Brigit Anna McNeill on the Meaning of Winter Solstice Time
• To Dream, to Feel, to Listen
• Autumnal Thoughts and Visions
• November Musings
• Winter of Content
• Balancing the Fire
• The Autumn Garden
• Autumn: Season of Transformation and Surrender
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2021)
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2018)
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2016)
• O Sacred Season of Autumn
• “Thou Hast Thy Music Too”
• Autumn Psalm
• “This Autumn Land Is Dreaming”
• Autumn’s “Wordless Message”
• Autumnal (and Rather Pagan) Thoughts on the Making of “All Things New”
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• That Quality of Awe
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond (2020)
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond (2019)
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond (2017)
• A Winter Reflection

Image: Michael J. Bayly.