Every year between New Year’s Eve and my birthday Feb 12, I experience some sort of shadow period.

It varies in intensity year vs year, sometimes just a feeling of cloudiness and other times a full blown self-diagnosed depression.

I’m deep in the midst of that cycle of mine.

This year feels kind of helpless and out of control, overwhelmed and challenged to not focus on the negatives.

I’m also in the winter period of my moon cycle, which just abruptly shifted from a first-in-my-lifetime-pattern of bleeding on the full moon for the last 6 months or so… to now this being the first cycle of bleeding on the new moon, I think.

Fingers crossed the bleeding comes soon on the new moon, because that release is always a relief for me.

And then will come my birthday, just a month or so later.

That usually wraps it up for me and I begin to have a feeling of levity again.

I’m not sure why I have this shadow period each year.

I’m sure it has something to do with my childhood and the period of darkness inherent in this time of year in rural Illinois…

Post Christmas festivities and pre-birthday…

I can see how experiencing this period year after year could shape my biological and nervous system patterning for a lifetime.

There is a part of me that is ready to drop this as a story or experience though.

I’ve had the awareness for about 15 years now, and yet it still creeps up on me in a sense and catches me off guard until I remember “ahhhh… this familiar old friend is back.”

I wonder if some part of myself will guide me into the depths of my shadows this time each year for the rest of my life.

Another part of me just likes to flow with it though, and let the watery waves take me over and consume me.

I learned from nearly drowning in the ocean when I was younger that panicking and resisting is what takes you further and further from shore.

Surrendering to the flow of the water brought me to the death that actually allowed me to be reborn, crawling out broken but alive, feeling like a newborn.

I’ve almost drowned in the waters of my own life’s metaphorical tidal waves before too.

And the one thing that seemed to help me get through and finally emerge gasping and filling my lungs with air, precious air, my element as an Aquarius… was surrendering.

Giving it all to the field, source, the divine.

“I can’t carry this anymore, please … help me.”

And you know what?

The divine always comes in at that moment and rewards my surrender and trust with levity.

A text from a loved one or friend who I’ve supported in the past, offering love and gratitude out of the blue.

A random love bomb from an old mentor.

A special moment of stillness and connection and pure unadulterated unconditional love with my child.

Ah…

This is perspective.

This is what life is for.

This is why life is not only always positive and easeful.

So I can grab some perspective on how blessed and supported and seen I really am and not take any of it for granted.

I am needed here. In this shadow.

In this liminal space is where I gather my tools, where I remember who I am, I remember who we all are, I come back down to earth, deep inside her moist cold dark depths.

*Shiver.*

And when my birthday rolls around, I really am reborn.

So, I hope by sharing this that I shed some light on this dark winter if you’re also experiencing the blues.

I hope you know it’s all part of it… it’s all part of our story as humans.

We can think we have control and have our lives all wrapped up perfectly in a bow…

And we do… even in the shadow periods.

But there’s something about the depths that brings us back to our humanness. Our smallness. And the knowing that we can’t really do it on our own.

We co-create every aspect of our realities. Which means every piece — regardless of the challenge or strife — is for the highest Truth and our collective path of ascension.

Nothing is wasted.

As long as we keep our perspective.

So…

What do you think?

What little bits and pieces are you gathering in this wintertime, as you go to the depths and release what needs to die, back into the earth?