Titration and Glimmers of Hope
I wrote a version of this two years ago, and published a podcast on it this week, because still I find this a useful reminder. Thank you mother nature!
Titration and Glimmers of Hope
Once a year, we get to have water straight from the source. It comes filtrated and remineralized. It’s sweet and earthy, and it pours from the maple trees. It must be below freezing at night and a balmy 40 degrees or hotter during the day.
It takes all winter to cultivate this sweet water; in the quiet of the day, in the dark of the night, and in the cold freeze of the air and the earth.
And I wonder, are we like the maples at this threshold between winter and spring?
Winter, of course, is an analogy for a quieter season. Often with harsh conditions. It’s a time in which we use the resources gathered in earlier seasons to work through, or surrender to deeper challenges. Sometimes chronic.
As we round a corner from winter into spring, you may feel like me, “Bring on the warmth and the color! Please bring change and signs of life!” You may receive a glimmer of hope and not want to let it go!
It tends to feel amazing. Dreams and visions may begin reemerging.
When the cold returns, or patterns you thought you had conquer reappear, it can feel devastating, like rolling backwards toward what you thought you had been freed from.
But the maples have a reminder for us:
-The returning freeze or perceived hardship is not a backwards movement. It is part of the titration process.
Or as Kirsten Beverly Waters reminds us, an arrow must be pulled back before propelling forward.
-The thaw is what gives us a glimmer of hope and direction.
-The freeze reminds us of the depth and wisdom we’ve gained when no one was looking.
-The thaw shows us how we can integrate and share it.
Pendulating between the two allows us to gather the sweet water that is only available at the threshold of a new beginning.
Titration is the process of small doable pieces over time. Room for contraction and expansion.
So here’s to taking a pause to notice what is sweet when most things still seem dead outside, to slowing down instead of rushing a transition, to pendulating between expansion and contraction, and receiving the deep nourishment that comes before the colors, the warmth, and the light.
With deep gratitude,
Sarah
If you want to distill it more, this wise sweetwater can become a metaphorical syrup that integrates and adds to almost any future offering.
