The Quiet Struggle
Have you ever experienced an especially harsh season? A stormy spring, a heated summer, a dry fall that makes you question everything. This winter was especially harsh. There were two major snowstorms and days of single digits that hardened the snow into solid mounds of dark, covered ice. The wind was harsh, biting, and relentless. The heat where I worked was on and off, and it seemed the cold was inescapable.
Locking myself away for the winter seemed sensible. I coveted sunny days and any warmth the sun could provide. But things were breaking and dying all around me. My usually hardy pothos plants, which could go without water for days and revive with a good soaking, were withering. The leaves turned yellow and dropped off. Then my recently flowering Christmas cacti drooped and died. I helped them as best I could. Searched for answers, nurtured clippings. It all seemed hopeless until recently, when I was watering them, I found delicate green shoots in the barren places.
The Gray In Between
The season hasn’t fully turned yet — the sky is still dull, and the air is still heavy. There is a day of balmy weather, then the chill comes back, with winds that tear at you.
Right now, Earth is approaching the March equinox, which is the precise moment when the planet is not tilted toward or away from the Sun. During this event, day and night are nearly equal across the globe, marking a clear threshold between seasons. Globally, we are in a liminal season — poised at the equinox, where Earth collectively stands between what has been and what is becoming.
We’re living in that space where nothing looks different, but something feels different. This mirrors an emotional truth: change often begins long before it becomes visible. Even as the wind howls through available crevices, the anticipation of something new can be felt.
The Small, Unexpected Sign
While doing the same routine you’ve done for months, you notice it: tiny new growth on the plants you’d quietly written off. The geese flying in V formation, honking out instructions. You hear them before you see them — this is a sure sign of something coming. This is a hinge moment — the shift from resignation to possibility. From ice to warmth, and death to growth.
What That Moment Teaches
Growth doesn’t always announce itself. Like seeds buried in the fall, waiting for the moment to push up from the deep to seek light and warmth. It happens in the cold, in the dark, in unseen places. You may have put in your best effort. For such a long time. Only to be thwarted at every turn.
The effort wasn’t wasted; it was simply working underground.
I am often surprised. Especially when I couldn’t understand why my efforts weren’t paying off, why plants were dying. Plans for the future collapsed, and then a small shift — a phone call I waited three years to receive — comes in, and everything shifts. A new place. A new town. People I am unsure I want to meet. Leaving a loved place, with familiar faces, to wander into something different. I am unsure whether this change will meet my needs. Has that happened to you? Have you yearned for love or a new job, only to feel an unexpected terror at the change it will bring?
The Broader Truth About New Beginnings
New beginnings rarely arrive as clean slates. They show up as tiny green shoots in the middle of a gray season, built on the decay of what has gone before. They ask for patience, not perfection, reminding you that life renews itself even when you’re tired, even when you’re unsure. Even when a dream presents itself, it brings dread — the fear of leaving the known for the unknown. New beginnings ask for bravery.
The Invitation to the Reader
Maybe you, too, are in a season that looks lifeless on the surface. Barren and hopeless. Have you been tending something — a hope, a habit, a healing — with no sign of progress?
Consider this: the universe is tending to things for you. Preparing the way for dreams to come true in an unexpected turn. Maybe this fruition is a stepping stone to something even better.
Are You?
I was sad that my once robust, healthy plants were dying, and I couldn’t stop it. I tended to the decay, accepting that everything has its season, only to discover the tiniest fresh growth — the sweetest bright green shoot emerging from what had been dead.
You may still be in the liminal season, expecting something, but not there yet.
Anticipation is ripe for the moment.
New beginnings don’t wait for perfect conditions. They begin anyway. We start with trepidation and excitement, not knowing if this is the outcome we wanted or just another step on the journey. There is a line from the movie Hamnet where Shakespeare asks his son, “Are you brave?” “Are you brave?” Well, are you?
© Copyright 2026 Sandra Lee Schubert. All Rights Reserved.
Sandra Lee Schubert has spent three decades exploring the intersections of creativity, spirituality, and meaningful work. A published poet, ordained interfaith minister, and former radio host of Wild Woman Network, she brings curiosity and heart to everything she creates. When she’s not helping service businesses tell their stories, you’ll find her seeking out quiet moments, tending her creative spirit, and asking the questions that matter. She believes in slowing down, listening deeply, and living with intention.
