Seeds & Cycles of Connection

“Like the dry bones [and seeds], we so often start out in a desert. We feel disenfranchised, alienated, not connected to even a cactus clump.

“A desert is a place where life is very condensed. Life in the desert is small but brilliant and most of what occurs goes on underground. This is like the lives of many women.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves

There was a turning point in my own journey which I now recognise as a seed moment for this somatic work I offer. 

I experienced terrible mental health when I was young. I didn’t know any different than extreme anxiety, insomnia, excruciating muscle tension and constant background fear and shame. This was the air that I breathed.

Following one of those devastating, gut-wrenching break-ups, I committed to weekly talk therapy. At the same time, I leaned heavily into yoga in a desperate way, needing something to cling to.

So, a few years later, I felt I’d done a lot of ‘healing’. I knew myself better. I was also learning about trauma and psychology, reading lots of books, attending courses. I’d done several years of counselling for god’s sake!

And then, Covid came and I wanted to grow some flowers in that most beautiful spring where the air was quiet and full of pollen and bees. I wanted to plant some seeds: nasturtiums and sunflowers. And as I came to nestle them into the soil, it hit me that I had no faith they would grow. I did not believe they’d grow. I couldn’t cast my hope even a few weeks ahead.

I realised that while I didn’t feel so bad any more, I didn’t exactly feel good either.

I realised the pall of depression had shrunk the whole future. And also, in this moment, a new phase of healing was opening up. The seeds were a key. The seeds were tiny, dry, hard, inconspicuous. I didn’t know which ones, if any, would grow and I couldn’t ensure they would.

Nature was at work. Something bigger than me and out of my control was at work. It was natural and mysterious that some would grow. Some would end up blooming and turning to seed. I could do my best to offer them favourable conditions, and beyond that I just needed to trust and wait and see.

I was sad to realise that for so long I had felt exiled from these natural cycles. And I received this gift of the seeds - that beyond me, around me, life was moving through its incredible processes of growth and death and rebirth. 

The flowers grew. Some of them. And I’ve been gardening since then. 

A recurring theme of the somatic therapy process is reconnection with natural cycles.

Over time, you begin to locate yourself within wider cycles.

Clients make contact in an embodied way with the cycles flowing through them, and the cycles that hold them.

For people with cycles, our menstrual cycle and transitions through life phases offer distinct and deeply embodied experiences of nature.

The ‘seed’ moments that my clients experience arrive in unique ways, through what resonates with them. They each have their own seeds that the therapeutic process waters. Different plants and flowers bloom in their incredible, unique imaginations. Their various life experiences and gifts offer seeds that are diverse and distinct. I see my role as gently encouraging these and supporting the therapeutic process.

If reading this stirs a dormant seed within you, please take a look at how to work with me: Womb Gaia Somatic Yoga Therapy, and Womb Gaia Somatic Bodywork.

I would love to hear from you. Get in touch here.