Seeds of Promise, by Molly Remer

Imbolc brings an invitation into change,
to step into the forge of transformation,
to sink into the holy well of healing,
to open ourselves up to an evolving path
of growth and discovery.
It is now that we remember
we are our own seeds of promise
and while there is time yet
to stay in the waiting place
biding our time
and strengthening our resources
so we have what we need to grow,
soon we will feel the wheel
urging us onward,
the call to set forth
becoming unmistakable and strong.
Let us settle ourselves into center,
nestle into trust and determination,
and extend outward from here
feeling the sweet wind caress us
and the fiery forge beckon us
as we heed the summons to roll on,
the path opening up before us as we move.

I read my first book about Goddess herstory in 2001. I bought my first copy of the We’Moon datebook three years later, my first infant son slung across my chest in a baby sling. I picked this colorful, woman-honoring, goddess-worshipping, spiral-bound volume out of the stacks of lesbian, feminist, witch, and anarchist literature piled in untidy heaps on a table in the small radical bookstore located below street level in the liberal college town where I’d attended graduate school. I felt as if I was doing something risky, forbidden, possibly even dangerous and I still remember how to felt to carry my datebook up to the dim counter to make my purchase, the smell of patchouli drifting in the air as I ascended the stairs back to street level, now with both hidden knowledge and a baby carried in my arms. Perhaps it was my upbringing within the subculture of religious fundamentalism—not my own family, we were liberal and agnostic—but the culture of my homeschooled peers in rural Missouri, which had taught me that to name the body as sacred, to explore one’s own wisdom and self-authority, to partake in magic, to embody and envision the divine as feminine, are all dangerous acts. In some way, somehow, I absorbed that these are the realms that are restricted and denied and with that datebook in my hands, I was daring to break beyond those rules and taste the unknown, the mysterious, the magical, the powerful. There was something here for me. Something that would last forever.

I have purchased a new We’Moon almost every year since 2003, each one still flavored with that memory of the forbidden and the wise. We’Moon is rich with art, poetry, and short pieces of writing from contributors around the world and has always been willing to take a stand for justice and radical self-empowerment, as well as harmony with the natural rhythms and cycles of life.

Now, that infant son who descended below the street with me is turning twenty years in the fall. And, I was honored to be asked to write the Holy Days content for We’Moon 2023. Today, I’d like to share with you what I wrote about Imbolc, the season in which we now find ourselves in a pagan wheel of the year, this midpoint between winter and spring, when we scent change on the air, feeling those seeds of promise we carry within us because to yearn towards light and growth.

Here we are in seed time, dream time, looking for the cracks of light that let us know it is time to stretch out and grow. We are invited to consider this possibility:What if there is nothing wrong? What if there is no too slow or not enough? What if deep magic is born in the cracks of living, creating, and being alive in this world, this body, this heart? What if we live a miracle every single day and we don’t have to earn it?

As the first shoots of new growth begin to lift tentative heads and we sense the very beginning sparks of possibility, of new ways of being and becoming, we may feel the itch to create a lengthy to-do list for a new year. Resist and sit, curled and waiting. In this waiting place, uncover what is enough. Not in the sense of settling or in playing too small, but the kind of enough that allows our hearts to expand and our shoulders to loosen, the kind of enough that allows creativity to blaze and joy to bloom, the kind of enough that opens space in our lives to hold ourselves and our seed dreams. Darkness and silence can hold both the sparks of our dreams and the embers of our hopes. We are our own seeds of promise.

Molly Remer/Mother Tongue Ink, We’Moon 2023

Do you have a forbidden wisdom moment? A time in which you descended to claim your power and then rose back up with your knowledge in your hands?

Molly Remer, MSW, D.Min, is a priestess, mystic, and poet facilitating sacred circles, seasonal rituals, and family ceremonies in central Missouri. Molly and her husband Mark co-create Story Goddesses at Brigid’s Grove. Molly is the author of nine books, including Walking with Persephone, Whole and Holy, Womanrunes, and the Goddess Devotional. She is the creator of the devotional experience #30DaysofGoddess and she loves savoring small magic and everyday enchantment.