THE SEASONS OF THE NATURAL WORLD

I am in a lot of women's groups. And have seen out many a season glued to my phone checking in on my sisters.

Biz women's groups.

Peer to peer women's groups.

Witchy full moon women's groups.

And just all out women-centred Whatsapp threads.

Truth be told.

I love my women.

And there's one woman, in one of these groups in particular, who I kind of feel I listen and learn from in many ways. (I am sure that's mutual. But what I am trying to say is.... I have a lot of respect for her.)

what season are you in?

When I first joined said group with this particular woman, she as coming down off a period of running really high. Like high in a good way. Successful programmes. Thriving 1:1 business. A sizeable audience. 

When she announced that she needed, desperately needed, to enter a Winter season. 

In other words she needed it all to stop, and she needed it to stop right now.

We've all been there, right?

I have my own stories too of needing everything to freeze over in order that I might get some sleep. For example - the day I decided to give up breastfeeding comes to mind. My child was about 18 months old, and truthfully I had wanted to feed him much longer. The problem was, nobody ever gave me that sage advice to maybe "give a bottle before bed so he sleeps through the night easier". And so I was still waking up every 2 hours to give him the organic, low-fat, perfectly designed for baby perfect mother boob. 

By 18 months of course this was more of a comfort for him than a straight up biological need. 

Fair enough, but if I didn't get some solid sleep I was going to lose the capcity to be a mother in any shape or form.

So I needed it to stop and I needed it now.

And this is the way my friend coasted into our group too.

I then had the good fortune to watch her design her own fallow period. I saw her navigate the risks and the concerns about stopping when the world really does not want you to stop. (Yup. My baby didn't want me to stop either. He cried for about 2 weeks solid.)

And deep respect was formed for my friend in that moment, quit simply by how effortlessly she seemed to understand her needs and assert them across every dimension of her life.

Because when do you see a woman exemplify taking the rest that she actually needs?

Think about that for a moment.

our collective lack of seasonal attunement

I realised that there was a shocking lack of this in the women I knew and worked with.

And I began to think beyond the cycles of the seasons themselves, and into thinking about the cycles of a woman's life, outside of the ancient concept of Maiden Mother Crone. Outside of the moon cycle that flooded her hormonal system every month. On account of the (lack) of action of my friend, I began to consider the natural cycles of the earth also. And how they might effect us on a deep cellular level. About the harm that might befall us physically, mentally, spiritually, the more we dissociate and pull ourselves out of these rhtyhms too.

Because most women just "buckle up and struggle through".

Consequently we live in a massive deficit of support and collective holding. 

It shames us, to live like this too.

Like if you have ever been struggling - say mentally. Or financially. Do you remember how you felt you needed to keep it quiet? Somehow afraid that if others caught a whiff of the smell of your lack of success and capacity to cope with life - that you would be abandoned even further? Like the time I had to say to a friend, "I'd love to come but I can't afford the gas in the car."

Things collapse. Life implodes. Expansion contracts.

And if you live by a compass of seasonality, then you have a framework for how, in the end, this is actually very, very okay.

HOW CONSTANT EXPANSION OVERRIDES YOUR SEASON

You know those coaches who are like:

"More!! Yeah! Bigger! Hell yeah! You've reached a plateau! Let me show you how to smash that ceiling!"

Honestly? Fuck those coaches.

What if we began to just collectively admit to how badly all this thrust and drive mentality is harming us? What if we allowed ourselves to fail once in a while? What if we even entertained the concept that our addiction to linear progression may even be what is holding our business growth back, in some weird kind of irony?

Conversely, what if we could redesign success in a way that allowed us a natural ebb and flow?

You've heard me talk about sex and it's correlations with life itself before now.

What if we could frame our progress like the female orgasm? In other words, what if we could show reverence for its' wave like ebbs and flows? What if we could let that, feminine coded pace, imbue the entirety of our lives?

What would you stop or do right now?

PAGAN HOLIDAYS AND THE SEASONS

Dominant capitalist assumptions are at their core, in total denial of death and the falling away. They teach us to expect immediate gratification, and to deny the possibility of a positive decay.

It takes courage, and especially so without any cultural reference to the safety and power of the death force, to allow yourself to let go and fall in there.

This is one of the reasons that I love to mark the pagan holidays, or the wheel of the year, so much. Because it creates reference to a living, breathing system. Where death and rest or collapse or falling away of external struCtures is seen as a necessary and even benefical aspect of life.

I know for sure personally, that whenever I have let go and let that death slide happen, that my life was simply culling the old and the stale in order to make way for something even more magnificent. of course, it always felt like a painful and MILDLY terrifying journey at the time. But in retrospect? I was always able to see a greater reason behind it.

The wheel of the year pays homage to such a time of decay.

As we enter into the darkest time of the year, perhaps it is good to remind ourselves of that? That there is so much power in this time of year, if we allow ourselves to truly understand it and go with it's energetic call.

learning from seasonality

Of course as far as my friend was concerned? It took a while. But I remember the day she turned up with a spark again. I was really humbled by how she'd navigated the seasonal cycle that her body mind was calling for. She had fully allowed it. Not pushed for the resurrection before time. But 100% trusted her body and her instinct and gone with it til she was done.

And when she was done? Truly it was a sight to behold. 

I remember seeing the power in her. Like a mother bear yawning awake again after hibernation. It kind of took my breath away. To see a woman awakening all over again. And to feel and to know what she was going to be capable of for the year before her now.

If you want to know more. That friend's name is Chela Davison. And she made a podcast all about the power of seasons, which inspired this blog, HERE.

what are the sacred seasons of life?

Of course, the actual season of the year will have a massive impact on your needs and energy levels personally. But it is also true that you can enter any season at any time of year too.

That said, I wonder what season you might find yourself in personally right now?

Have a look at the following pointers - and see if you can curate your life in response to this instead of pushing against it again and again.

Let me know how you get on:

Winter

The dark. The fallow. The empty. Bereft. Still and quiet. Slow and void. Deeply feminine. Like an empty womb. A tomb. Lifeless and totally non productive.

Spring

The tentative. The trembling and nascent. Hopeful. Planting of seeds and trying things out to see what will take and what will hold. Unstable. Lacking root. But also full of joy and possibility. Inspiration is Spring.

Summer

Something solidly growing. We have the sense of trust. Reliability. Nurture. Productivity and depth of energy. Fullness. Heading into the ripe.

Autumn

The harvest. Celebratory. Beginnings of sadness. Grief starting to enter as success is both enjoyed and the fruits consumed. Also some things will be discarded now and left to rot.There is a chaos and a digest both.

which season are you in?

It is important to realise that the season of your life may be dominated by several things. Of course, it may correlate with the actual season. 

For example, I plan my Temple offerings to be very quiet in August - when everybody is playing. And also December and Janiary. Where everybody needs quiet.

But it could also be the season of your life - along the maiden, mother crone axis.

Or even the season of energetics. Which can change pretty rapidly too.

Ultimately, the presiding cultural shift that living with intended connection to seasonality, is that it will bring you into your body. As a practice it allows you to rest and create. To expand and contract. It brings you into a deeper self-connection and self-trust.

You. Your body. The pace from which everything births anyway.

What is not to love about living like this and reclaiming our lineage. Our life death and rebith cycle?

you are invited