The Psychic Bardo of Winter

Between the first quarter moon and Imbolc

Sonja Hinrichsen: Snow tracks (2014)

The concept of a bardo comes to us from the Tibetan tradition. It points to a liminal state, usually a state between death and rebirth, a kind of hopeful but imperiled wandering between lives. That’s where we are right now. We are now in the second moon of winter, the moon where the seasonal winter energies are “fixed,” and on the first of February we celebrate Imbolc, the pagan holy-day that marks the half-way point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. An old cycle of our life has ended, and the next is not yet fully here. The transformation is underway — there’s no turning back.