It’s a beautiful day where I am in Virginia. I live on a mountain at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, right off of the Shenandoah Valley. My mountain is the starting place of the Rappahannock River. Yes, I am blessed.

       This winter, I’ve been doing my morning practice and meditation outside some mornings. I take a mile-long walk, then go down to the Lady’s Spring on our land where my partner created a lovely, outdoor temple for me. It’s been powerful to be out in the cold, rain, snow or shine to call in the Goddesses and sit with the Lady of Avalon.

        I was brought up in the city. Tokyo with its eternal hustle and bustle was my home. The 4-year sojourn in Sydney as a child was wonderful, but Tokyo was where I grew into a rebellious and deeply curious teenager. People interested and fascinated me, more than nature. I was captivated by everything man-made: literature, architecture, music, theater, dance, photography, art, philosophy, and history. I wanted to know what made a person become who they are. I was passionate and questioning everything I saw. So, it’s been fascinating to shift my body’s knowing to another wavelength of sensing. It took a while, but oh so worth it.

         Today, like other days when I’m outside, I was feeling the hardness of the ground. It’s amazing to know how my body and energy field reacts to that. Very subtle, but clear. The air density is different and how sound travels shifts with the temperature. The trees stand still in a different way. With the hard frost gone in this cold but warmer day, the soil is springy and allows my bones to release a bit more easily into earth. Even grounding felt different, my energy entering with more sensuality into the earth.

          The shift in temperature and hardness of earth comes and goes until sometime in early February, snowdrops start to emerge. It’s the fruit of the Quickening of earth. In the Goddess Wheel of the seasons, it’s time of Imbolc and the Maiden Goddess. You can feel it in Nature, depending on what climate zone you might be in. Yes, that coming out of the cold, hard Winter towards the promise of Spring. We are at the threshold. And the threshold is an incredibly powerful and mystical place where we are neither here nor there. The in-between place where potential is still connected with Infinity as it is approaching the gateway towards manifestation. The Alchemy of the Threshold.

          I LOVE this place. Perhaps because I was born in February, in that threshold time of transition from Winter to Spring. Perhaps because I became bi-lingual in Japanese and English from age 7 when my dad’s work took the entire family to Australia for 4 years. Thinking and existing between 2 cultures and languages is also an in-between place. It’s the place of poets and dancers and musicians and the arts. Sketching out the visions into possibility. Beginning of communication where creative impulse starts to take form that can be shared.

         The Threshold is a place of Alchemy where one thing transforms into another. Lead to Gold. Magic. It’s the place of healing where one story transforms into another. And so, this magical place in the Avalonian tradition belongs to Morgan Thitis, Nolava Maiden, Swan maiden. Bride or Brigit, a Celtic Goddess who is also revered as a Christian saint, St. Brigit, resides here in her White Goddess phase: maiden /white; mother / red; crone / black. Phases of a Triple Goddess. Saraswati, Isis, Diana, White Buffalo Woman are there too, to name a few more Imbolc Maiden Goddesses. In Moon phases, White is the New waxing moon, Red is the Full moon, Black is the waning into New moon. And the cycle repeats. Life for Goddess loving people, regenerates.

I feel much power in Imbolc that is coming up. This Imbolc is at the beginning of a new phase: politically, socially, culturally, and health-wise for us, the people of the United States. Like a Maiden, it’s a brand-new story, and the power struggle of the old stories that do not want to go “gentle into the good night”. Much like the confluence of a river, it’s chaotic and tumultuous. The seeds germinating and ready to come through are in a struggle to break free and break through, seeking sunshine. Pushing through the heavy earth. It requires a huge amount of focus and determination and desire to break through. If only our human impulse to know where the true Sun is were as simple and straightforward!

Each one of us, in our lives as the architect of our own lives and part of the collective of the human species, and denizens of Planet Earth have a responsibility to chart out where the Sun is. And in the realm of the Goddess, the Sun shines over each and every one of us on this Earth, plankton to sea creatures to plants and water and soil and trees and air and all manner of creatures, including human. Let’s all get back to basics as we rotate in powerful space around our Star and enter into the Threshold moment of this new cycle. I propose we hold the alchemical formula of Lead to Gold: transforming how we see ourselves and the world from lack to joyful abundance, egocentric notions to life affirming expansion for all, from blame to gratitude, from fear to love. No one said it is easy. But that challenge is also the fire that is an integral part of alchemical transformation. As the wise Hopi elder says, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For. Step up and step in. The time is now. Welcome Imbolc and the Maiden Goddess. Lead us into the Alchemy of the Threshold.