approximate reading time: 4-5 minutes
REFLECTION TIME
I know I have been quiet these last weeks…for many good reasons. I’m contemplating my next moves in life, studying for a test, healing from my broken foot and moving forward with my redirected spirituality.
I am continuing my search for other perspectives on Jesus, the God in the Bible as well as learning more about other ways and modalities for understanding spirituality and how we are all interconnected with one another and with the Earth. The funny thing is, the bigger my perspective gets – the more I feel like I understand Jesus and what he was reported to say and do in the gospels. While many will say that I am on shaky ground and that Jesus stands in opposition to a lot of these new discoveries – I just have to shrug my shoulders and say as kindly and as passionately as I possibly can, “I’m just not so sure he does.”
I am continuing my journey to learn more about what it means to be a woman. I am learning about the cycles of the Earth – otherwise known as the seasons. I am learning about how interconnected our own bodies are to these cycles – something a new mother learns with her baby’s circadian rhythms – rhythms that we all have. I am learning to follow the cycle of the moon and how this impacts my own cycle – which I am rephrasing to lovingly call “my moon”. (I plan to write more about this later!) I am learning that my energy will ebb and flow just like the phases of the moon, and just like the seasons of the year.
HARVEST TIME
Which leads me to the Fall, the Harvest. Traditionally, this is a time to reap the bounty of the work that was done over the spring and summer. A time to realize the goodness of the work of our hands combined with the faithfulness of Mother Earth, with her nutrients, and Father Sky, with his sun and water, have produced. It is a time to store up for the upcoming winter months while we slow down as the fleeting heat and energy of the Summer Sun gives way to the shorter days and colder nights of Autumn.
Yet, in our fast-forward, full speed ahead society that is in supersonic mode – we have all but forgotten this art of slowing down…of patterning our own day with the day that is playing out right now in front of us. We are so focused on the next big thing that we don’t realize the present is being missed. While our bodies are screaming to get our attention by giving us cancer, cardiac disease, obesity, depression, anxiety, PMS, diabetes, hypertension, etc. – we go about our days popping more pills, eating more food, ingesting more technology, seeking more shallow relationships – all along hoping to mute the pain our Embodied Souls feel from being disconnected to our cycles and the Earth.
By no means am I saying that I am immune to the dis-ease that is our culture carrot. Yes, I too see the carrot dangling out in front of me to just do more, push harder, work longer, sleep less and I too will soon become a successful blogger like Rachel Held Evans and appear on The View with my new book (soon to be outlined).
Yet, I am guessing that something bigger broke deep-down inside of me when I heard my fifth metatarsal pop back in early August because…try as I may to keep soldiering on, to keep pushing through the fatigue and the heart-ache and the tears…I just cannot. No matter what, it seems my body has decided for me that it will follow the patterns that are as old as time…and that right now it must slow down.
LETTING GO TIME
One of the things I am learning about this time of year is that it is not a particularly easy time of year. No, it is a time of year for reflecting on your past 6 months and all the work you have put in, a time to harvest the bounty you produced and then a time of letting go of those things – whether good or bad – that need to be let go so as to allow you space to eventually start planting a new crop.
If I look back at my life last year this time, it was about this time that the grief over the end of my marriage began to come to the surface. The need to let go of my childish ways was beginning to surface and the need to see God in a different light was beginning to break through the clouds of my fundamentalist ways.
This year, realizing that Fall was a hard time for me last year – I take comfort to know that my life both outwardly and inwardly is following the pattern of the seasons without me even knowing it. So, with that notion in mind:
~ I am allowing myself to continue the process of letting go of old patterns, habits and relationships that will no longer serve me in a healthy way.
~ I am allowing myself to cry…sometimes torrential downpours if needed…purging my inner soul of the yuck and muck that has been stored up there. I am learning to sit in the ebb and flow of my emotions as they ride the roller coaster up and down – sometimes within hours.
~ I am giving myself permission to not push through, but to stop and rest when needed.
I am finding that I still get done what needs to get done…and the rest I am learning to keep in my iPhone on a list to keep coming back to. The funny thing is I actually think that this will eventually help me be more productive and focus more on what I really want to do because I can feel my soul starting to unfreeze, to decompress, to soften and open up…kind of like the ground in the late Winter as it begins to prepare itself for receiving the seeds…
Hmm, I can almost here an old prophet named Jesus speak of the Seasons using them as a way to explain eternal truths about this life. And wasn’t there a wise sage named Solomon that said there is a time for everything under the sun? It seems that our Biblical ancestors knew a whole heck of a lot more about following the patterns of the Earth than we do – maybe we should follow their lead?
YOUR TIME
Now it is your time. Your time to reflect, to harvest and to let go.
- Reflect: What have you been doing these last 6 months? What is the produce of your planting and growing seasons? What are some ongoing themes that you see weaving in and perhaps out and back into your life over the spring and summer? Think back to last Fall: what was good about it? What was difficult?
- Harvest: How is your harvest going this year? Are you reaping the rewards of your Summer or are you in a drought? What do you have to be thankful for in all areas in your life? Are you allowing yourself to slow down as the sinking energy from the sun plummets? How can you take steps to allow your body (including your soul and mind) to rest?
- Letting Go: What do you need to let go of in order to make room for the new planting season? Where do you need to spend some time grieving? Or is it you need to learn how to grieve? Or maybe even the first step – learning to let go?
