Walking between the seasons

There is something very unique about this short time between the seasons - walking the liminal timeline between winter and spring. New life stretches into the lengthening days, yet heavy cloud and biting wind remind us that winter has not quite released its grip.

Verges are embellished with colour: white and red dead nettle, yellow celandine and delicate blue ground ivy, while blackthorn hedges have burst into bloom. Catkins gently jangle on birch and hazel, and willow has erupted into soft, fluffy buds.

Ponies enjoy a snooze in a sheltered pocket behind flowering gorse, still wrapped in their winter coats.

Nettles look soft and lime green -far from their imposing, thick-stemmed defensive army and tingling weapons of summer.

Birds sing and begin checking potential nest sites, not quite ready to move in as the dance of flirting and reinforcing bonds fills the air from buzzards and red kites circling above, while the distant call of lapwings carries as they migrate inland to breed.

There is a shift that can be seen.

There is a shift that can be heard.

There is a shift that can be felt.

I sit among the ruins of wartime structures slowly being reclaimed by nature, and find myself reflecting on the collective anxiety - the spiralling thoughts, the brewing anger and fear that has touched friends, clients, and my own life these past couple of weeks.

If you have been feeling it too, the landscape seemed to whisper a quiet reassurance: "the ride is almost over."

Change is coming. New beginnings are imminent. Darkness is giving way to light, heaviness is being shed, and the fertile pulse of nature is beginning again.

In this liminal moment, remind yourself: you are nature, recycled over and over again.

You are the universe experiencing itself locally and life will soon bloom once more.