belly
26th Jan - 1st Feb 2026
1/26/20267 min read
Sunday the 1st February brings us Imbolc this year (it’s not always this date, it changes along with the solstice and equinox as it’s the halfway point between them) and it’s from this ancient, cyclical calendar mark that I’m taking my theme for practice this week:
belly.
Imbolc is commonly interpreted as deriving from the Irish “i mbolg”, meaning 'in the belly'. For folk living off the land, the marking of ewes being in lamb and cows being in calf makes sense. Milk production wasn’t a year-round thing: it’s naturally seasonal, tied with birthing new life. So Imbolc carries the optimism of new nourishment on the horizon. It’s hard to ignore that it’s also tied to the return of the light in the UK - Sunday will mark us as three quarters through the dark season, and well on our way to more light than dark hours.
One of the main reasons I’ve committed to writing these themes each week is because I love mythology and symbolism - I find it such a useful way to dig into my yoga practice by narrowing the lens a bit. It gives me something to focus on, which as you may be able to tell, I need to stop me going down a million metaphorical rabbit holes. Happy to say that digging into the associations with Imbolc has been gloriously rich and layered, plenty to keep my brain busy.
symbols of Imbolc - willow trees and Goddesses
For starters there’s Brigid (pronounced "Breed"/"Breetj"): a Goddess who moves through maiden, mother and crone forms throughout the year. For Her, Imbolc marks the shift back to maiden form, blessing the land with spring rains and the light and heat of the sun. There’s a thawing out energy here, but also something more powerful - Brighid is a Goddess of fire: the hearth, the forge, smithcraft and purification. I’ve always been sort of fascinated by metalwork and the use of fire to create stuff - we so often see fire as a destructive force, and for good reason. But it can also create, alchemise, purify.
My Aussie partner has taught me about the fire-loving tendencies of eucalyptus trees - they shed their oil-rich bark, creating a pile of what looks like giant pencil sharpenings at the base of the trunk. Their own highly flammable kindling. They’re also well adapted to spread fire between them with far-reaching, swaying branches. Why would a tree evolve to create and spread fire? It’s one example of fire creating alongside destroying - the high temperatures stimulate an accelerated seed shed. Coupled with burning off of other surrounding plants (eucalyptus are well protected from fire and heat, but a wildfire will be deadly to most other vegetation), and you have a nutrient/carbon-rich, competitor-free soil ready for the eucalyptus seeds to land on and sprout. Fire as a creative energy, alongside its destructive tendencies. Just as a blacksmith’s forge is a deliberate fire, heating metal to create malleability. Turning something solid, raw and unformed into something intentional and precious, whether that’s for use or beauty.
Another symbol linked with Imbolc is the Willow tree, represented in the Ogham alphabet by the letter ‘ᚄ’ (sail or saille), sometimes linked with the word ‘sally’ (as in ‘sally forth’) - to leap; a sudden outburst of emotion, action or expression. Willows are water lovers with long, resilient roots and can represent a sense of drawing up from the depths. The association of water with emotions might link this with deep rooted emotions, perhaps allowing these to surface. Willow is also associated with the underworld goddess Hecate and the shadowy, less well known parts of our existence. I’ve got to talk about the astrology of this week here - it’s too related to ignore:
the skies
I’m writing this on Monday (Sunday is turning out to be an unrealistic time to write and post a blog, should have thought about that really), and today we have a first quarter moon in Taurus. What that looks like is the moon at its half form, a semicircular light in the sky. Taurus is ALL about roots - grounded, practical energy - and a first quarter moon sits well with the idea of laying down roots: foundations, initial seeds, starting ideas. Then on Tuesday, Mars is meeting (conjuncting) Pluto in Aquarius. That’s the planet of action/drive, meeting and amplifying the planet of uncovering/emergence/the hidden, working through a lens of decisive, liberatory brilliance. If that doesn’t scream a bit of underworld vibes I don’t know what does.
Add in Thursday’s Mercury conjunct Venus (communication and the mind, meeting our values and things we love) again in Aquarius (so with that cutting through the bullshit, freedom seeking, standing up for what we believe in edge), and a Full Moon in Leo (think celebrations, culminations and confidence around themes of generosity, self-expression, compassion and warmth) on Sunday alongside Imbolc. What this is saying to me is quite a lot about expressing ourselves clearly, compassion for and honouring our true selves - the ones that maybe sit under the surface occasionally - and taking actions that align with all of this.
Right! Back to the belly, before I wander off on any more wild tangents.
So there’s so much going on for me with this theme. It feels impossible to ignore that bellies are heavily politicised and policed in our culture and others - pushed to be smaller, neater, tighter, held in, covered, fertile, filled with baby (“oh how wonderful, congratulations!”), but not with bagels (god forbid the dreaded carb bloat ‘food baby’), chiseled and six-packed, stretch marks massaged out and oiled away, a “strong core”. Bellies can come with baggage.
If you’re looking for guided yoga that deliberately cultivates love for the belly, look no further than this gorgeous Belly Love collection from The Underbelly Yoga (a big thank you to them for creating this lushious space, and to my friend for sending me there for some belly love myself). If you’re looking to do some more thinking about bellies and how this might support your yoga practices, here’s some themes emerging for me, ideas for how they link to the theme of BELLY, and prompts for further consideration:
Note - as always, take what feels useful and leave anything that doesn't. Not everything is for everyone!
nourishment - drawing on deep or new resources
Our belly holds our stomach, our main digestive organ and the source of our nutrients. It seems intrinsically linked with how we resource ourselves and what nourishes us physically, but also emotionally. Food is of course a physical resource, but can so often also be a cultural, nostalgic or emotional joy.
What might nourish you this week, and what resources can you draw on to get this?
the returning light - the thaw, new energy and creativity
I don’t know about you, but I have been HUNGRY recently. My belly has been calling out for extra food, extra fuel, more energy. There’s a lot to be said for this tying in with a bit more motivation in hitting the ground this week - the light is coming back slowly but surely, and I’m finding myself with slightly more oomph and drive. Taking small steps towards new ideas is feeling much more like a good idea rather than a pain in the arse.
What creative seeds have been planted over the winter season that you’d like to start (or continue) bringing into fruition, bit by bit?
fire and the power of cultivating destruction alongside creation
‘Fire in your belly' - a passion, drive, or motivation to acheive something, is often considered as an obvious, external ‘success’ drive but can also be something quieter, more subtle, longer-term maybe. Similarly - Uddiyana Bandha in yoga is one of the energetic locks, involving lifting the diaphragm and activating the deep abdominal muscles. It’s so easy to interpret this (I did at first!) as a forceful tightening, sucking in, squeezing of the belly, but I’m starting to learn it as a much more subtle, gentle containment. It’s also really practiced only in stillness - not the same as using your core muscles to lead movement.
What matters most for you to gently hold onto right now?
the forge - transformation, alchemy, action
As we learn from the eucalyptus tree and the forge, fire has those dual purposes of destruction as well as creation. Cutting through and discarding the unneeded or irrelevant, cultivating that which is aligned and supportive. There’s symbolism in the stomach here for me too - we don’t use all the nutrients we eat, plenty of them are waste at the end of the day (I was raised by healthcare professionals, I’m alarmingly unsqueamish about this, but I won’t dwell on it). But there’s a parallel right: we don’t have to use every opportunity that comes our way. Not every resource is going to prove useful to us. And there’s only so much we can take in at once.
What could be ‘burnt off’ in order to clear space for the things that you most want or need right now?
emotional grounding, resilience and protection
Back to roots and that idea of grounding, but also the resilience of the eucalyptus to its own fire - protected by its fire-resistant bark. The belly can be considered as a place of centering and grounding, and this brings me to the belly breath - seemingly a regualar visitor of the modern yoga class: “deepy belly breaths” is something I’ve said myself guiding a class, and have heard more times than I can count. There’s good reason - intentionally controlling your breaths to create a longer, deeper inhale and exhale can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, countering the impact of stress hormones like cortisol and creating a sense of mental calm. The belly as a center and place to root to has been a really useful visualisation at times for me.
When can you find time to take a deep belly breath during your days, and what other emotional grounding rituals might support you this week?
uncovering, something new emerging, self-expression
Last but not least, the belly as a symbol of the hidden, the covered, the underneath (although we carry our bellies on our fronts, when we refer to the ‘belly’ of an animal, it’s the underside - important to remember I think that our bellies are inherently vulnerable spots: we are naturally prone to keeping them safe). Add in all the cultural bullshit I talked about earlier and is it any wonder our bellies often end up hidden? So as a last, but not least, prompt for the week:
What might you feel safe enough to uncover, to allow to emerge, to be expressed more fully?
