Ever hear the expression Rain, rain, go away, come again another day? Well, it took on new meaning here in Massachusetts several years ago when it rained for ten days straight. We had a few days’ respite, and then we got some more! I was at the dentist's office a few days after the second deluge and overheard the receptionist talking with another patient about gardening.

“I wish the sun would come out,” the patient groaned. “I've got so many plants just sitting on my porch, waiting to go in the ground.”

“Don't worry about it,” said the receptionist. “The ground is perfect for planting right now. All you need to do is dig a hole and plop 'em in!”

We all laughed, but she was absolutely right. Even I (the only one in my family born without the proverbial green thumb) was able to quickly and easily “plop” in some perennials that week. Why? Because the soil was so soft, prepared, and ready. Soft, prepared, and made ready by many dreary, rainy days.

During that time, I was struggling with my own sadness and grief over the loss of our beloved cat, Scooter. Some days I thought that my tears would go on forever, but I gave myself permission to shed those tears, and I allowed the discomfort that comes with such deep sorrow.

As I gave my grief space and time, I learned something powerful. If so much rain makes the soil fertile and easy for planting, then it follows that so much sorrow can make the ground of our souls lush and ready for new seeds.

The card shown here is my Cosmic Gardener Council suit Neter. I made the card intuitively and when I journaled with her, this is what she said to me:

I made this card before we got hit with all that rain, months before my heart was deluged with so much sorrow, but her lessons are coming clear to me more and more, now that the sun is back to shining on a regular basis again (on the earth and in my soul).

Think back to a time in your life when your own heart and soul were flooded with sadness for many days. Did you allow yourself a rainy season? If not, why not?

Looking at your life now, can you see any new seeds that flourished in the aftermath of that soul rain?

Make a SoulCollage® card for your own Cosmic Gardener, the one who oversees all growth.

Anne Marie Bennett is a SoulCollage® Facilitator / Trainer, published author, website goddess, and two-time cancer survivor who was mentored directly by Seena Frost. In 2005, she fell in love with SoulCollage® and was inspired to use her professional experience along with web technology as a means to serve the world by putting SoulCollage® "out there" in a really big way with KaleidoSoul. Anne Marie lives in eastern Massachusetts with her middle-aged husband, one adolescent feline, and a treasury of birds, squirrels and chipmunks who keep them hopping. Her other books about SoulCollage® are available here.

Date: Saturday, April 30, 2022

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As I write this, the western hemisphere is just two days from Spring Equinox, and all around me the land rejoices with the coming season of renewal and growth, of planting seeds. My bare feet step tentatively upon the ground for the first time since retreating into the protection of woolen socks back when the cloak of winter began to settle upon the land. My feet had grown armored and callused from my perennial habit of walking the long warm months in my garden with without shoes. My feet went into the hibernation of socks with a tough outer layer of protection.

But just as it does for the seeds of this Earth, my feet were softened by Winter.

A seed goes into the ground in the Fall, protected by the hard shell that keeps it safe from the hustle and bustle of the world. But in this state of rigidity the seed will not grow, the spark of Life within will not expand into the world. To expect a seed to lie upon bare rock, safe and yet profoundly limited within its hard shell, and then find its way into new life without the difficult, disintegrating work of stratification . . . is ridiculous.

And yet we sometimes wishfully expect or desire this for our own heart and soul. We sometimes wish to bypass the liminal space of soul’s Winter, the uncomfortable space in between the conception of our new growth, and the moment when that potential bursts forth as new life.

This is the paradox of Winter, the paradox of seeds—that the restful stillness of this season of hibernation can also be quite harsh, even brutal, in the way that Winter works upon the world upon the seeds in the ground, and also the seeds in our hearts. The liminal space of Winter softens us, cracks us open, makes us receptive to Spring’s call into growth, if only we can give our hearts over to it, receive the sometimes-harsh stratification necessary for a seed or a seeded heart to sprout.

As a person who’s experienced a lifetime of seasonal depression during Winter, I had long developed the habit of attempting to bypass this time of softening—by numbing myself out, by distracting myself with busyness, or by giving in to the self-defeating abuse of the depression itself.

SoulCollage® became a pathway out of this cycle of denying my own potential growth through my intolerance for liminal space. My deck now contains many cards exploring Winter’s work of death, decay, composting, stratification and breaking down the old to make room for Spring’s renewal. The pair of cards shared in this column represent this connection between these two aspects of Life’s cycle—in the World, and within us.

The card at the top of this column is my Companion suit card for my First Chakra. I call it The Rooted Place, and is clearly a card of Spring time. I am one who cracks open in the soft soil, sending forth the sweet tendrils of potential housed within my seed, reaching, reaching into the wide open world.

My Sacred Decay card, from my Council suit, shown here, celebrates Nature’s devotion to decomposition. I am one who does the job no one else wants, the one others turn away from in fear and revulsion. Consuming the dead, I bioremediate that which is toxic and stagnant, cultivation the sweetness of new life in its place.

They need each other, these two sides of me—the one whose business is decay and the one invested in new life.

And so, as we take these first steps into Spring and the time of sprouting seeds—physically and metaphorically—I invite you to take a moment to notice whether something within you needs a bit more softening. Turn to the cards in your deck—or perhaps make new ones—that honor the decay parts of the cycle. Ask if there’s anything in your heart that is ready to be given to the compost bin, and what actions you can take to support this.  

Celebrate the miracle of this process, even in its difficulty. Then, having completed the work of Winter, thank and release the season of composting, and turn your smile toward the Spring, toward the seeds even now preparing to open and be born within your heart. Happy birthday, little ones; it’s time for your potential to sprout and grow.

Michaela Daystar trained as a SoulCollage® Facilitator in 2013 with Mariabruna Sirabella and Seena Frost, and since then has brought SoulCollage® into myriad spaces, from college classrooms to government agencies. Michaela is also trained in the Japanese origins of the system of Reiki through the International House of Reiki, and teaches all levels of Reiki at her wellness studio in Davis, California, as well as on-line. In all endeavors, Michaela calls on ritual and intimate connection with the land and the seasons to draw participants into our innate ability to connect and collaborate with the Web of Life. Visit Michaela at her website, HeartScapes.

May: Sacred Places

June: Sovereign Soul

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