Spring and the Art of the Possible
Spring carries a very particular energy for me.
It is not simply a season of new beginnings, nor does it feel like a call to rush forward and become a new version of myself. It feels more like the birthing of possibility — something that has been quietly forming beneath the surface beginning to reveal itself.
The word that comes most strongly is hope.
Not hope in the sense of needing a particular outcome, but hope as the art of the possible. A sense that life is opening again. That movement is returning. That something is stirring, even if I do not yet know what shape it will take.
I feel it in my belly as a gentle bubbling, an energy beginning to brew.
In Chinese Medicine, spring is associated with the liver and gallbladder. The liver is connected with vision — with our capacity to sense direction, imagine what may be possible and move towards growth.
But this year, vision does not feel like creating a fixed plan.
It feels more like trusting what is emerging.
When possibility is no longer defined
I have spent much of my life looking outside myself for direction.
What should I do?
How should I be?
What will make this work?
What will create the best outcome?
Increasingly, my compass feels as though it is moving inside.
The external factors still exist. Other people still have opinions. Life still presents challenges, interruptions and uncertainty. But they do not seem to sway me in the same way.
I feel more settled in who I am.
And from that grounded centre, possibility feels very different.
As soon as we define what is possible, we limit it.
The thinking mind naturally wants to name what is emerging and establish where it might lead. It has a fabulous capacity, and I value it deeply, but I am learning that not everything needs to be understood or resolved.
For me, the art of the possible is not about imagining a better list of outcomes. It is about loosening my grip on the need to define the outcome at all.
When I let go of the idea of what I should become, possibility becomes infinite.
Leaning back into trust
Recently, a friend gave me a lift.
The passenger seat was reclined much further than I would normally choose. I tend to sit upright in a car, so at first it felt uncomfortable.
But rather than adjusting it immediately, I decided to stay with the experience.
I allowed myself to lean back.
I allowed my friend to drive.
I allowed myself to be taken where we were going without needing to sit in the posture of control.
Something about it felt beautifully settling.
I realised that I did not need to be in the driver’s seat in order to feel safe. I did not even need to place all of my trust in the person driving. By being grounded in my own authenticity, I could trust the universe. I could trust the Tao.
That is what being held feels like to me.
It feels like leaning back.
It feels like warmth in my chest.
It feels like everything easing.
The urgency leaves.
Returning the energy to the heart
I recognise when my thinking mind has taken over because I feel the concentration of energy shift within my body.
It is difficult to put words around this, because describing it requires the very mind I am speaking about. Lao Tzu reminds us that as soon as we try to define the Tao, we have already moved away from it.
But I know the feeling.
When too much of my energy gathers in the thinking mind, it now feels like imbalance.
This awareness has not appeared overnight. It has come from practice — from placing the energy back into my heart again and again.
And again.
Over time, the body learns the difference.
When the energy returns to my heart, everything slows. I feel warmth. My body softens. I stop trying to solve the whole of life at once.
The thinking mind often feels charged with completion. The heart is more interested in presence.
This does not mean I no longer have ambition.
If anything, my ambition feels clearer and simpler.
It is no longer centred only on material success or visible achievement. It feels deeper and more embodied. It is an ambition to live truthfully. To continue becoming more fully who I am. To allow my life and work to grow from that place.
Wisdom without prescription
Part of this change has been learning to trust my own wisdom.
Not as a set of rules for how anyone else should live, but as lived experience.
This is what I have learned.
This is what I have spent years sitting with, feeling into and allowing to marinate.
Perhaps something within my experience will speak to something within yours.
I feel more willing now to embrace the depth of my own life. My spiritual knowing, my embodied understanding, my experience as a woman and the wisdom within my work no longer feel like separate parts that need to be kept in different rooms.
They belong together.
I am not hiding them.
I do not need to shout about them either.
I am simply becoming more willing to share them.
Sometimes spring is not about becoming something new. Sometimes it is about allowing the many dimensions of who we already are to become visible together.
We are part of a changing Earth
I believe we are living through an extraordinary time in humanity.
The energies of the Earth are changing, and because we belong to the Earth, we are changing too.
I feel our experience of time is shifting. Sometimes life seems to move incredibly quickly, catalysing growth that may once have taken years — or perhaps even lifetimes. At other times, it slows, creating the exact space needed for something deeper to unfold.
For me, relationships and experiences have been powerful catalysts.
I do not need to share the private details of those experiences to recognise their gifts.
The deeper learning has been to sit with what is happening, and with what I feel, rather than trying to force everything towards an optimal outcome.
When I stop trying to control where an experience must lead, its teachings can arrive more quickly and more deeply.
This has allowed my own spiritual abilities to unfold further.
It has also helped me release the idea that I must become a fixed and completed version of myself.
Like a stream or river, I am never exactly the same.
I am always changing.
And allowing that change is beginning to feel like a deeply rich place to live.
Spring in the Australian bush
In the Australian bush, spring does not begin on the first day of September.
The flowers are already appearing in winter.
This year, I noticed wattle in bloom and baby birds appearing while we were still in midwinter. To me, they felt like signs of the unusual times we are living through — but also like reassurance.
Warmth is coming.
Movement is already beginning.
Possibility is already in motion.
I love walking through the Australian bush as winter begins to lean towards spring. Our flowers are extraordinary. They are not simply petals. They appear in intricate shapes, textures and colours that make the eyes marvel.
They invite wonder.
They also remind us to look more closely.
A flower does not exist as isolated beauty. It belongs to a whole living system. It feeds insects and animals. It produces seed so the plant may continue. It may smell as beautiful as it looks. It is multidimensional — offering colour, fragrance, nourishment, continuation and connection.
A flower does not need to reduce itself to one purpose.
It simply becomes fully what it is.
Perhaps our own flowering is like that too.
Moving with spring
Spring can still be a quiet season.
It does not have to mean becoming busier, louder or more visible.
For me, it feels like a slow emerging from winter.
Walking more.
Moving the body.
Allowing creativity to return.
Becoming more open, more energetic and more at ease in myself.
Spring is also a beautiful time to begin Qigong. While we have a deeply nourishing winter practice, spring brings a more active quality. Movement helps the energy that has gathered during winter begin to circulate.
What has felt stuck may begin to shift.
But spring does not need to become another expectation.
Nature is not demanding productivity from us.
It is offering movement.
It is offering warmth.
It is offering nourishment, beauty and wonder.
If winter has felt heavy, we may be able to let the movement of spring carry us gently forward. Not by forcing ourselves into action, but by remembering that we are part of nature too.
Perhaps it is no surprise that an idea has also been quietly germinating for me in the lead up to spring — an immersive nature walk through the bush, with space to slow down, tune into the senses, move with Qigong and simply notice what is here.
It feels less like something I have decided to create and more like something that has begun to emerge from the season itself.
Spring says yes, move.
But do not become so focused on movement that you forget to stop and smell the flowers.
Perhaps that is the invitation of this season.
To feel hope rising.
To allow possibility to remain undefined.
To let the heart take the driver’s seat.
To lean back into trust.
And to become more fully, quietly and beautifully what we already are.
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