my fallow year

i find myself writing on the last day of december 2023, as i look out across to the hills that sit beneath a cold, grey sky & the birds try to catch themselves on the winds.

the calendar year is about to turn, and like so many others, this time pulls me to reflect upon the passing year, to acknowledge & give gratitude to what has been & what i’ve learnt.

there have been so many beautiful & expansive experiences for me this year & i began a big learning journey when i took the step to train with mizan therapy as a womb healer & abdominal massage therapist.

my training took place in february in marrakesh, this felt like a perfectly ripe time to start on a new pathway. i was enlivened & also nervous of course, to travel once again by myself, to meet new people and i guess to expose that vulnerable place of learning something very new. i began with the excited expectation that i would complete the training and launch myself into vibrant new offerings for nama mama, that would surely be successful, fruitful & rewarding.

what i didn’t expect to receive however was the hugely personal journey this training would take me on. that it would indeed open the most vulnerable & intimate places within me, and that those places would need deep tending, listening and healing.

the “plan” for my year suddenly felt very uncertain. i had to surrender to patience and allow myself time to fully integrate my personal experiences & understand how to give shape to the offerings i want to provide through nama mama.

i have battled with a sense of failure, it’s touched at the raw places from my childhood where i find it hard not to show a successful, independent me.

why can it feel so hard to slow down?

since samhain really i have been trying to sit with myself and allow the questions to be voiced so that i can make sense of this personal judgement train i have been on.

a phrase has been coming into my mind over & over. so much so, that i felt the strong need to write it down & help it to unfold a little more, hence me writing this blog post!

a fallow year…. this was a fallow year….

when traditional landkeepers, farmers & growers tend to the land, the practice of a fallow year allows the land to intentionally rest & regenerate. the acknowledgment that the balance or reciprocation between growing & nurturing has been broken or tipped. that there has been too much taken and that the land is at risk of depletion. and, so, the land is tilled, prepared and then simply left to be.

we see this also in the beloved glastonbury festival! where the land is rested every few years so not to deplete the resources of the soil or take too much energy from the land.

without awareness, i had reached a state of near depletion

i realise now the exhaustion i was holding was making me pretty ill. i was found to be near anaemic, not sleeping well and disconnected from my true self.

this fallow year has allowed me to find a deep mental rest that i haven’t felt in a very long time.

i have made intentional space to meditate, to sit & be with myself to allow a reciprocal conversation to happen, where i don’t heap yet more expectations onto my laden shoulders, but i listen to what my physical & spiritual self needs.

i have created some simple daily & weekly rituals for my self care & i am enjoying the sense that i am regenerating the soil of my life where my roots run deep.

soil mycelium network

it is no coincidence that this year aligns with the birthing year of my first child, 10 years ago.

as a mother i have certainly, for too long, placed my needs at the end of line. i have sacrificed and compromised my comfort, my voice & my desires & i am unlearning this slowly & gently.

although this year has caused me to slow down, it certainly hasn’t been barren of life or experience. i have met some amazing people and am grateful for my experiences & friendships old & new. i have supported and worked with amazing women and couples and have learnt so much - thank you morroco, thank you brighton, thank you appledore, thank you brixton!

i have written these words as place to come back and remind myself of the importance of rest. if they have found you, i hope they may also encourage you to weave some fallow time into the cycles of your own life, to restore, regain & rebalance.

i am grateful, i look toward the spring & i hold hope for those who have no place to rest on this earth right now, for those in gaza, in sudan, in yemen, in congo, in ukraine, in haiti, that this year is the year where liberation is actualised.

emma

i explore similar philosophies in my womb work, and birth mentoring if you would like to learn more about how i can support you, please take a look at my offerings, or feel free to drop me a message :)

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