If not now, then when?

On the thousandth day of war, the healing arts are calling you. You’ve heard that soft tug in your chest. A warm opening, a melting, an immediacy and clarity like no other.

What are the healing arts?

Anything that creates genuine betterment for another being (human or non-human). Regeneration is a healing art. Mothering is a healing art. Writing is a healing art. Painting, drawing, and illustrating are healing arts. Creating a business that liberates your time and focus is a healing art. Growing a garden is a healing art. Telling stories of hope and truth is a healing art. Nourishing yourself and your community is a healing art. I could go on and on.

This time is known in your soul, and mine.

We were born into the great turning.

To witness it with our eyes, what it means to go through a rebirth on a planetary scale.

For every serpent to shed its skin at once, to emerge anew, alive.

And yet, not only to witness, but to participate with the gifts we were granted upon our birth, and skills, blessings, hardships we collected and alchemized along the way.

If not now, then when? When are we to start? Truly.

Waiting to begin creating is a luxury we don’t have anymore.

We have been delayed. By the stories told to us, by the shiny objects, by the cool careers, by doubts, by duties, and necessities. That is okay.

However.

There is no better time to create than now.

There is no better time to write than now.

If you were thinking of shrinking yourself and your desires to create, while the world is unravelling in front of our eyes, I ask you to think again.

If medicine folk were to return to their hermitages, never to be seen during times of war and plague, we wouldn’t even be here to begin with.

We are saved by collective making, we are saved by open hearts, we are saved by sharing our medicine with each other: a poem, an essay, a photograph, a business, an offer, a capacity to build, a possibility to listen deeply, an otherworldly sensitivity, a word bundle travelling to reach you at your lowest.

Continue.

Times we are in call for a specific kind of immediacy, one anchored in slow groundedness that can carry us from one moment to another. The past weeks have been difficult on a personal and collective level. The heaviness we are handed down can feel like a pressure that’s very hard to stabilize and create movement from.

There’s a week left until the Headwaters writing course begins, I have family visiting over from Scotland, and there are dozens of things still to resolve in my day-to-day life that compound the feeling of overwhelm.

My nervous system is asking to narrow down my focus and to create pockets of stability (and sanity). To focus on things I can control and put into motion. To get clearer on my message and what I want to share with you, at this moment.

However, as much as this immediacy can feel paralyzing and freezing (some of us respond in frozenness, some of us spring into frantic action), it can also create a momentum that propels deeply intentional creation.

Rivers and water have been the most nourishing allies in re-awakening aliveness with softness and power, when the human world is closing in on itself. Sitting next to and spending time with rivers is something that I long for daily. And yet, as much as we have met rivers themselves, rarely do we meet their birthplaces, their points of arrival onto the surface of the earth — springs and headwaters — where life truly comes to be.

For the creative clarity to come in the deep throws, we must dive towards the calm waters at the bottom of the sea, and stride towards places of springs and headwaters.

To steep in moments of cooling darkness. To find an energetic cave that shields us from erratic thoughts and actions. To find grounding that’s not a surface-level distraction or momentary dissociation, but something that provides a deeper reassurance that this moment is safe to be in. And the next one, and the next one.

As a daughter of an evolutionary astrologer, I will be taking deep, broad steps into anchoring myself further to stabilize parts of me that are spinning out in all directions.

This means being intentional with what I consume, what I watch, and listen to, the foods I eat (there will be a lot of beans and nettle infusions to nourish the minerals and the gut!). Connection with loved ones and intentional time with the living world around me.

Aries energy (known for its warlike action-taking capacities) asks us to begin, but like no other time, the beginning must be consolidated into intention:

Again and again, how does my soul ask me to live?

What is the medicine that has been brewing within me, ready to be delivered in these times?

If you are called to write at this time, if you feel that it is your medicine to share and you need support, as well as community to finally begin (or begin again), you’re invited to join Headwaters: 8-week writing and creative liberation course, designed to dissolve creative blocks, nurture the inner writer, regulate nervous system, help you create your writing a structure for clarity of your message. All done within an intimate writing community.

We begin on April 22nd. You can learn about the course here:

Join Headwaters

You can also book a free clarity call with me, to see if Headwaters is right for you: https://calendly.com/ruta-zem/1-1-with-ruta

Much love,
Rūta