Post #3 in the series, A Field Guide to Your Inner Seasons

There’s a moment — it always comes quietly — when I begin to notice a faint stirring after a long stretch of Shadow. It isn’t a breakthrough. It isn’t a grand realization. It’s more like a soft exhale I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

Sometimes it happens on a morning when the sky feels a little wider.
Sometimes it shows up as a single sentence that feels true.
Sometimes it’s nothing more than the desire to open a window, or make soup, or pick up a pen.

Small things. Barely noticeable things.
And yet… something inside me recognizes them as light.

This is what I’ve come to call a Glimmer — that first, subtle shift when the heaviness begins to thin, and the tiniest thread of curiosity returns. It’s not joy exactly. And not clarity, either. It’s the invitation before clarity. A little warmth rising through the cracks.

The tricky thing about Glimmers is that they’re easy to dismiss.
For years, I ignored them. I waited for the big epiphany, the tidy answer, the “aha moment.” But those never came when I expected them to.

The truth is: becoming rarely begins loudly.
It begins with a whisper.

A Glimmer might arrive as the impulse to move your body after weeks of stillness.
Or a sudden craving for color after feeling grey inside.
Or the thought, “Maybe I could…” even if the sentence doesn’t finish itself.

Sometimes a Glimmer is simply feeling less tired than the day before.

I used to ask myself, “Is this enough to matter?”
Now I ask, “Can I allow this to be something?”

Because Glimmers grow in permission, not pressure.

They don’t ask you to leap.
They ask you to notice.

They don’t demand courage.
They offer possibility.

They don’t insist on answers.
They give you the gentlest nudge toward aliveness.

I remember once going through a season where everything felt muted and heavy. I was sure I’d be in it forever. And then, one morning, I found myself wanting to brew tea in my favorite mug — the one I’d shoved to the back of the cabinet when I didn’t have energy for preferences.

It was such a small desire.
Ridiculously small.

And yet… it felt like a spark. I didn’t name it as such at the time, but looking back, I realize that moment was the beginning of my return to myself. It was the first sign that something inside me still wanted warmth, comfort, beauty.

That’s the quiet truth of Glimmers: they don’t force you forward — they remind you you’re still capable of movement.

Creativity shifts here too.
It becomes playful again, tentative but sincere.
Not productive. Not ambitious. Just… curious.

I find myself doodling in the margins of my journal.
Tearing paper for no reason.
Gathering colors that speak to something soft inside me.
Sometimes I write three lines and feel satisfied.

In Glimmers, creativity becomes a doorway — not to output, but to openness. To sensing what might be possible again. To noticing which parts of you are beginning to stretch awake.

And here’s the thing: Glimmers don’t all point toward answers.
Some simply point toward aliveness.
Toward being here.
Toward the tiniest ember still glowing beneath the ash.

If you’re in this season, I hope you let yourself feel how precious these small sparks are. How brave, even. Not because they require effort, but because they appear in moments when effort has been so hard to muster.

Glimmers are the soul’s way of saying, “I’m still here.”
A quiet rising of light after a long stretch of dark.
A tender beginning, long before momentum returns.

So notice them.
Honor them.
Let them be enough.

They are the first signs of your becoming —
not loud, not dramatic —
but beautifully, unmistakably alive.

Next in this series: Transition (coming soon)

The tender in-between where everything is shifting, and nothing feels certain — but something new is quietly taking shape.

If something in this season feels familiar—
the flicker after the dimness,
the moment when possibility returns in small, hopeful ways—
you might love the Field Guide to Glimmers.
It offers gentle prompts and practices
to help you follow what’s beginning to glow again.

EXPLORE IT HERE