The hunger of hibernation

Seeking wholeheartedness as the antidote to exhaustion

Hello friends.

Photo by Jeremy Vessey on Unsplash

It is the middle of January and rather than starting the new year with a lot of energy, I feel like someone is trying to wake me mid-hibernation.

The second half of 2024 was a hard one for me, in ways that aren’t for sharing right now. But mid-autumn my body and heart demanded to be heard and I pulled back from anything that wasn’t essential, including online spaces. I’ve learned to love the dark half of the year, but this year the need to retreat into a cave and hide and heal for a while felt different, it felt urgent.

A Mirabai Starr poem says, “Enter the womb of the world / and take refuge there.” That was the invitation I heard, to take refuge in the dark.

There’s a lot of talk online about wintering and the need to rest and hibernate. But it struck me today (it’s surely not an original thought) that when animals emerge from hibernation in the spring they are not exactly photo-opp-ready. They come forth hungry. Imagine hardly eating for months, drawing instead from all the reserves you have put down in the time of plenty until it is all consumed. What wakes you then might be less the delicate, delightful calls of spring and more the desperate rumbling in your stomach, an urgent need for nourishment.

Mary Oliver describes the awoken bear as “this dazzling darkness / coming / down the mountain, / breathing and tasting” (from her poem Spring).

As we inch our way into the new calendar year, I notice that while it was definitely right to heed the invitation to stop - to pare back all my activities in order to put needed space around my soul - that space only protected me; it hasn’t nourished me. I’ve had to remember how to draw on past daily bread when today’s manna has not appeared outside my cave.

James Pearson sent an email out yesterday that included a link to an older post where he shared this line from David Whyte’s book Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity:

“You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest?... The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”

I love the concept of wholeheartedness, because it stands in such needed contrast to the idea of perfection, which is what much of my given religion tried to push me towards.

Wholeheartedness is instead a way of being in the world. It’s a way that encompasses both those things I am “good” at but also all the ways I am still learning and growing, still healing and in need. Wholehearted shows up fully, trusting that I am already complete, already enough, already whole.

I believe that wholeheartedness is deeply rooted in our own souls (it can’t be stolen or destroyed). But it is also something we do together.

As I look back over the past year, the moments of most profound wholeheartedness came in the company of others - swimming in the cold Danish sea with my friend, sitting up late at night over a glass of wine with friends or my husband, gathering on Iona with an incredible group of women, sending voice notes across timezones with kindred spirits, in sacred conversation with my directees, sitting in a scripture circle with other curious hearts, and so many moments with my children when they saw me in all my glory and frailty and loved me wholly.

Debbie and I are hosting a retreat on Iona again this year, and as we’ve been talking and planning to return there, I am reminded all over again of why this is the kind of retreat I am excited to offer: silent individual retreats certainly have their role, but I deeply believe that the spiritual grounding and growth we are desiring will happen together.

It is always messy, to risk being seen and enter into relationship with others, but my own experience suggests it is one of the most significant ways we heal and find our way back to that inner wholeheartedness that we never truly lose, only get momentarily disconnected from.

This January is not about emerging from the cave yet. I am being careful to not burn out again, to prioritise what feels manageable and life-giving.

But my one intention this new year (as arbitrary as that calendar marker is) is to keep risking and seeking connection with others. I am looking forward with so much anticipation to returning to Iona this May (we have four spaces available if your heart is yearning for space to rediscover that wholeheartedness) and also leading a retreat at the Othona Community in one of the my own sacred spaces - the chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall on the wild Essex coast in April.

And tonight I will gather online a small group of spiritual directors to look back over the past year of our work and set sacred intention for this work looking forward. (If you’re a spiritual director, you are so welcome to join us). In a role that is often done alone, it feels like the best antidote to begin this new year together.

I wonder… what does wholeheartedness mean to you? Does the idea of connecting it with togetherness resonate?

And if you’re in your own season of hibernation, what nourishment will you need once you emerge in spring?

Coming up…

• Tonight: Looking back, looking forward - A workshop for spiritual companions to reflect and plan for their work at the start of the new year.

• 4-6th April 2025: Wild Edges retreat with the Othona Community. A contemplative retreat where the rugged beauty of the Essex coast meets the untamed spaces of your soul.

• 1-5th May 2025: In-between, A women’s retreat to the wild sacred island of Iona (four spaces remaining).

  • Debbie and I recorded a conversation about the retreat which is up on her substack - you can watch it at this link.

• And save the date if you are local to Coventry/Warwick/Leamington Spa (or happy to drive from further!) - there’s an event in the planning stages for Sunday 2nd March…