Fallowness

Fallowness

"All Nature seems at work
Slugs leave their lair ---
The Bees are stirring -- birds are on
the wing ---
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."
    ___ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Work Without Hope"

   When fallowness strikes, it is important to place it in the context of the creative cycle. After the period of conceptio9n - an exciting period during which we sparkle with ideas - comes the time of gathering and preparation, when things get moving. This followed by a period of growth, which cannot be hurried, and then by the moment of ripeness, when the idea must manifest or the project get off the ground.  This is followed by a time of enjoyment and appreciation, when we can share our manifest idea or plan with others. After all that has happened, we come to the time of fallowness.
   To honor our own creative cycle and patterns, we must respect this period and learn to be as empty and receptive as we can. After any birth and manifestation, we are too tired to immediately reconceive: we need this time of rest when we lie fallow as the unplowed field that the farmer sets aside for several seasons to regain its fertility. Let us honor our fallowness, our uncreating emptiness, by cutting ourselves some slack and giving mind and heart time to recover their former savor in a new season. Fallowness is the ground of our conception: when the soil is ready, the seed will fall and germinate.

"Consider helpful strategies to sustain yourself through these empty times in ways that honor
fallowness creatively."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]