🌹🎶 Imbolc: Activating Change

A ramble on expressing, visioning and embodying the change we wish to see.

Here in soggy London, Spring26 is in activation - the tight grip of winter loosens, as blades of green poke through the sodden earth, and a widening band of light appears at the end of each damp day. This emergence of light and life has been celebrated throughout human history, as we are both changed and active creators of change within the constant turning of seasonal cycles.

The word change emerges from root words meaning bend, turn, barter, exchange, reflecting that change comes both with and without active agency. Whilst the arrival of Spring is beyond human control, earlier, warmer springs in the UK are a result of climate change driven by human activity. We each perceive and express spring changes uniquely through actions such as planting up a garden, spring cleaning or wearing brighter colours. Personal and social change moves through interconnected phases of expression, vision and action, in which we are both receivers and creators.

Image: Alexas Fotos Pixabay

Calling for Change

They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that my soul and your soul are old friends.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that when they cut you I bleed.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that we will never be afraid,
we will never hate
and we will never be silent
for life is ours!”

—Kamand Kojouri - Iranian born writer, who was raised in Dubai and Toronto and lives in Wales.

As the movement from one state to another, change requires and releases energy. Powerful e-motions arise as we identify and express shifts that are either happening or need to happen. The recognition that some aspect of life is no longer working can generate anger, grief, and fear. Channelled creatively, the call for change is expressed through multiple art forms, including protest songs, journalism, oratory, debate, documentary, satire and polemics.

Transporting flammable emotions through periods of change carries risks - and is vulnerable to divide and rule. Focusing on what is wrong can, paradoxically, keep us yoked to that which we seek to change. Social media clickbait rewards expressions of outrage, snaring people in continued polarisation, distracting and displacing power which could be used constructively. Change requires a vision which offers hope and possibility beyond division and drama.

Visioning Change

“Loud as all the sounds can be,
let my silence be loud
so I may resurrect the dead
and give voice to the oppressed.

My silence speaks.”

-from War on Silence by Kamand Kojouri,
Full poem and Dr Andrew Last’s beautiful arrangement for Nordic Choir here

Dreams imbue social justice movements with wisdom and purpose - Martin Luther King’s dream famously unified the Civil Rights Movement. Leader of the Haitian Revolution, Touissant Louverture’s vision that, after his capture by the French in 1802, the tree of liberty ‘will spring up again from the roots, for they are numerous and they are deep,’ held true: whilst he died in prison, his people led the island to freedom in 1804.

Visions can be conceived in space and silence, taking shape in nocturnal and daydreams and quiet, pregnant pauses. Focus shifts from them or that to I and we, accompanied by shifts around the nature of our shared and collective being. A wider vista allows us to experience and cultivate a perspective of hope, wonder, awe, peace, unity, and possibility.

Personal creative and spiritual practices, such as meditation, mantra, vision boards, or goal-setting, can help us zoom out and align with the change we wish to see. Shared vision can be incubated in collectives such as think tanks, libraries, faith groups and science labs, which act as safe spaces to practice alternative visions of reality. To translate to effective change, vision must be matched by action.

Embodying Change

Doing creates and arises from new states of being. As we take action and adopt new behaviours, we are changed by the change we wish to see. Delivering change involves continuous experimentation, as we work through challenges, obstacles and resistance, all of which grow us as people. On a social level, actions of service to our families, communities and causes can forge purposeful connectivity and solidarity, whilst personal change can bestow learning, understanding and self-awareness. Aligning with a call and vision of change ensures action moves in a clear direction.

Photo by he zhu on Unsplash

Integrating Change

I am forever inspired by the example of Thich Naht Hanh, who, as a Vietnamese monk, found himself confronted by the question of how he could maintain a contemplative life, whilst the bombs of the Vietnam War fell all around. His deep meditative practice informed a life of service, which he described as the Lotus in a Sea of Fire, founding the Engaged Buddhism movement. Travelling to the US, to make the case for peace, he was exiled from Vietnam and established Plum Village in France, becoming a beloved, globally renowned teacher of ‘peace in every step.’

Thay’s story indicates that the deep alignment birthed within spiritual and creative practice can help call forth, vision and embody the change needed in the world. Whenever we engage in art, we are both changed and changemakers. With each word on the page, each note sung, each movement danced, change emerges within us, rippling out into the world.

The Imbolc Shift

Imbolc is a pregnant moment within the seasonal calendar, where life is burrowing up from underground and emerging in tiny spring flowers. Nobody quite knows where the name came from, possibly from words meaning belly, swelling, water, or milking. A Spring Festival celebrated at the mid-point between the Winter Equinox and Spring Equinox, it was presided over by multi-tasking matriarch Brigid, who was later assimilated into the Christian retinue of saints. In other Imbolc myths, the Green Man begins to wake up and battle Jack Frost, ahead of the final victory of the Oak King over the Holly King at midsummer.

Whilst the remaining chilly blasts may still require us to hibernate, incubate and clean house, the Spring sap rising encourages bold steps towards a new life. Coinciding with the Snow Full Moon in Leo, this year Imbolc is accompanied by roars for change in Iran and the US, including Bruce Springsteen’s protest song Streets of Minneaopolis

In the perpetual cycles of life, there is a time for action and a time for gestation, a time for banging the drums of freedom and a time for silence. Wherever you are in your own seasons of change, I wish you a beautiful Imbolc and Snow Moon.