Cyclical Living

I don’t work full time in that 40 hour western work week model. “Full time” is something I define for myself based on how much I am inspired and resourced to offer at any given moment in time. I live in flow with the cycles of nature and my nature as a woman and yet as I always say it ain't easy. It takes a whole lot of devotion to truly live in alignment with nature in a culture that has shaped it as being unnatural.

I have been in deep contemplation with phases and natures cycles lately as I have found myself unable to participate externally as much as I often do.

Living in alignment with natures rhythms should feel like swimming with the tide. However it often feels like swimming upstream while living in a western society. Even so, I imagine those of you who are working within the western work force know deep down in your body and soul something isn’t right with it.

I have been battling recently with the deep introspective nature of the tail of winter and the wifi network of collective pressure to do, to make, to produce, to work based on social norms. The external and internal dissonance is real. 

“The moon we see in the sky changes, but the moon itself does not. It is always whole - we just don’t get its full power all the time. If moving through cycles of energy has worked for the moon for millions of years, then maybe mere mortals like us ought to accept that our attention, energy and abilities also wax and wane.” - Chelsey Mizzi 
 

For women, the rhythms of nature and the phases of the moon are literally built into our bodies. We have no choice but to ebb and flow and yet so many are forcing themselves to work “like a man” in a culture that is not made for us. Regardless of biology, I see so many people living out of rhythm with nature, pressing for constant linear production and growth and fronting like they’re “on” all the time while living in perpetual burn out and deeming it normal.
 

This culture has brainwashed us all into believing that resting is not safe. 

Slowing down? 

Cultivating patience? 

Moving with nature? 

The nervous system registers it as death. 

Can you sense this?
 

In the phase of a new moon there is an invitation inward, to pause, to literally stop outputting energy and receive. 

You can only give what you have. 

If I want to host you for dinner but don’t have any food in my house how can I? Most people are “functioning” in this society by running on fumes. If you don’t put gas in your car you can’t drive it. I see a lot of somatic and nervous system guides talking about growing capacity for more and that more is always directed at more money, more consumption or some other version of more western success. 

So I have to ask, are we trying to “heal” ourselves into being able to function better within “the system”?

How many somatic guides and nervous system educators are actually encouraging us to turn our focus back to the rhythm of the earth for regulation as opposed to learning how to breathe through stress? How many so called healers out there are prioritizing the magic of being alive, in relationship with life, for the sake of life and not for the sake of another gold star. Even “healing” work has become a goal oriented capitalistic race.

Insert: eye roll 
 

Josh from ‘The Emerald’ once described the mystery is our greatest resource. 

Re-source - returning to source. 

What resources us is trusting the great mystery. Aka trusting life, trusting nature and all of its rhythms. Trusting means moving and living in tandem with the cycles, not against them. Living with is an embodiment, not simply conceptualizing mentally but actually allowing nature to move and express itself through your body. 

In Winter we are meant to rest, go inward, receive wisdom from the void and restore our bodies in the sacred pause. Spring invites a rebirth and renewal of our spirit and identity based on all that we have received [been resourced by] during the winter after the death of Fall. Summer allows us to to express this renewed self in full bloom, radiant joy, energy, production and social celebration of life. [Notice that our culture is trying to make us live in this all the time?] Fall ushers us into the portal of death and shedding which prepares us for the great dream of winter and inevitable renewal come spring.

We all know this, but how many of you are living it?

The moon offers this energy cycle each month along with the female body. This cycle is the cycle of our life - spirals within in spirals, from the cycle of our physical birth to death, to monthly, yearly and far far beyond a timeline we can even comprehend.

When this universal cycle is honored and embodied we return to right relationship with life.

Can you imagine a life in which all of this was honored?

Can you feel it in your body?

I am not telling you to quit your job.I am simply continuing to invite you into making more space to contemplate your relationship with the rhythms of nature and the programs you adhere to without thought. I pray you give yourself more permission to move and live with the guiding truth of your own body and give more power to life, to the mystery and to the true power breathing us all.

“While we create garbage dumps, nuclear waste, and harmful plastics that won't break down for millions of years, plants go about doing their work of creating healthy, healing, and beautiful living environments. Who are the wise ones, the elders, here?” 

- Rosemary Gladstar