It has been some time, hasn’t it?
What I imagined would be a brief pause at the arrival of winter became something else entirely. A deep hibernation, a turning inward, a quiet unraveling, and a thoughtful preparation. And today, on the Spring Equinox, I find myself ready to emerge.
From the dark folds of winter into the early glow of spring.
From stillness into gentle movement.
From inward knowing into shared words once more.
These days, I’ve been communing with the sky. Stepping out onto my new balcony, I breathe in the crisp morning air alongside the soft, rainbow sherbet sunrises, holding a touch of reverence in my waking heart. In the evenings, I face west to linger with the lengthening light as the sun begins to slip below the horizon, splashing the same pinky-orange against the red canyon walls.
In the middle, between the beautiful balance of light and dark, I seek to stay grounded in the small moments.
And as if in quiet alignment, today also happens to be World Storytelling Day, always a favorite of mine. A reminder that we are, at our core, meaning-makers. Story weavers. Carriers of truth, both spoken and silent.
It is also, somehow, the three-year anniversary of the release of my first novel, Feathers from the Fire, which in this moment feels less like three years and more like thirty. A lifetime ago, and somehow still right here.
So here I am. Returning. Beginning again.
And it feels fitting that this return comes on a threshold day—one that honors both darkness and light, past and possibility.
I shared in an episode last year (Persevere, 2.10.2025) that I had carried a long-standing fantasy when struggling in the in-between: Can’t I just go to sleep and wake up in March?
It would surface whenever I found myself in a dark, painful place. Looking back, there wasn’t anything inherently magical about March, except that it meant spring, the symbol of dawning light and new beginnings. This fictional solution meant I could skip the messy middle and simply arrive on the other side. Awake. Relieved. Done.
Of course, I knew better.
In my own life, and across three decades of sitting with others in theirs, this truth has echoed again and again: we cannot buy, bargain, or bully (or sleep) our way through the dark. We are asked to meet it. To move through it. To be shaped by it.
(Yes… cue the internal eye roll.)
And yet, this past winter, in a stretch so heavy I wondered if I might disappear inside it, those familiar questions returned:
Will I ever get out of this?
How long is this going to last?
When will I see the light again?
And then, something unexpected happened.
While talking with my cozy chrysalis writing community about the state of the moment and my efforts to manage, that old wish arose—can’t I just sleep until March? But this time, it dissolved almost as quickly as it came.
I didn’t want to skip ahead.
I didn’t need March to arrive any sooner than it would.
And I didn’t need to be anywhere other than where I was.
March would come, as it always does.
And I would arrive, as I always have.
In the meantime… here I was.
Not in resignation.
In acceptance.
And in that, something quietly profound shifted.
Releasing the Weight of Waiting
During my deep winter hibernation, an insight surfaced with startling clarity:
How much of my life had been spent… waiting.
Waiting for the text.
The call.
The crisis.
The plan to take shape.
The answer.
The reassurance.
The directions.
The sign that I was on the right path.
And even more subtle, waiting for something outside of me to deliver a sense of ease.
Sitting with this now, it seems obvious. Almost embarrassingly so.
I hold, deeply and sincerely, the belief that our wisdom comes from within. That we carry inside what we need.
And yet, beneath the surface, something older had been quietly at work, a patterned pull toward external confirmation. A residue of earlier chapters, still whispering into the present.
But once seen, it could no longer remain unseen.
The clarity was immediate: it’s time to release the weight of waiting.
The Shedding Before the Spark
During this past season, I read about the year of the Wood Snake, a “9 year” symbolizing a completion year, which prepares us to begin a “1 year” which is all about new beginnings. Sounded about right. A stretch of transformation and growth, facilitated by the shedding of illusions, patterns, and beliefs to prepare for entering the momentum of a new cycle, cleansed and ready. The silver bell of synchronicity ringing once again. This was not incidental or a coincidence. This was initiation.
Old habits do not fall away gently.
They cling. They coil. They convince.
But they can be shed.
Not easily.
Not quickly.
But necessarily.
And this is why I could not skip ahead to March.
There was work to be done in the middle.
Intentional. Aware. Purposeful.
A shedding that could not be rushed, only lived.
Creating the Conditions
And so, as the wheel turns and we arrive at the Spring Equinox—the threshold of new light, new beginnings, new possibility—I find myself standing in a different relationship to what comes next.
Because relief does not simply arrive one day.
Nor does peace.
Nor happiness.
Nor even rest.
We are not meant to wait for these things.
We are meant to create the conditions in which they can emerge.
This is the invitation of this new season of Found Feathers: Your Sacred Invitation.
Not to wish ourselves forward.
Not to bypass the becoming.
But to participate in it.
To ask, with honesty and curiosity:
What do I most desire?
And then—gently, steadily, courageously—to begin shaping the internal and external landscape that allows it to take root.
March did arrive.
Just as it always does.
But this time, I didn’t wake up into it.
I walked myself here, surrounded by the wisdom, care, and support of my many communities.
My hope is that the weekly invitations of Found Feathers become a place you can return to, a gentle gathering of words, a weaving of stories, a shared space of recognition and remembering. A space where, together, we create the conditions for our lives to unfold in closer alignment with what we most deeply long for.
Found Feathers: Your Sacred Invitation returns on Monday, March 23 and I am excited to reconnect with you all.
May you find the feather meant for you.