 Do you try to follow seasonal patterns or a Medicine Wheel / Wheel of the Year concept and find it difficult to connect and feel in sync sometimes? I have to admit that I do. And, I've been wondering why. Here are a few things I've noticed about why I feel out-of-touch sometimes with my own walk around the Medicine Wheel (north/earth, east/air, south/fire, west/water - or a variation of that). 1. I guess I'll state the obvious first, which is that industrialization and technology can buffer us from the truth of our environment. We can keep the lights on long after the sun goes down, and we can be warm when it's cold outside. But for me, this doesn't explain my sense of disconnect completely. There's something else. 2. The environment might not be synchronistic with the ideal of the season. My local area often does not reflect the seasonal energy. This probably doesn't happen to too many people, but I live in coastal Central California, and so our weather patterns don't really reflect the systems of the four-element Medicine Wheel. In the summer it's a paradox of dry and foggy... in the winter our grass grows green and lush because it is our wet season. And... perhaps obviously... it doesn't snow here. So that cozy wintry thing is often interrupted by 65 degree days. Just so you don't feel like California gets all the good weather... warm summers are punctuated by days of drizzly 55 degree foggy days too. Funny place I live. 3. The people around you might not be in synchrony with the season either. The hustle and bustle of the winter holiday season is a current example... and my lazy summer days of not having to get up to get kids to school feels like another. This is decidedly not true for everyone, but since I'm self-employed I get to set my own schedule. I guess the thing here is that our schedules have become detached from the seasons per-se. We operate independent of seasonal work.  4. This relates to #3, but there's something funny about how busy we all are. My dad was raised on a farm, and I know they worked hard all year round, so I don't want to idealize rural living 60 years ago as somehow less demanding. It may just be what we put our attention on these days... rather than having a task that takes time for us to complete (say feeding livestock, repairing fences, or crop care) we spend little time on any given task and jump quickly from one to the next. Is that why we're so tired? We're taxing our ability to keep up with ourselves? I don't have answers to this... I'm seriously just musing on this "out loud". I've just been noticing... as I do every year... that I have a tendency to "run late" with the seasons. Autumn is always very busy, and I tend to like it, right up to the beginning of December when I finally want to slow down. But at that point the light is about to return and the grass is growing lush... and I feel like I've missed something. It makes me feel like I'm always trying to catch up with "where I'm supposed to be". So, if you've been feeling a little "off" of the season... I'm wondering if anything I said above rings true? How do you feel you fit with your environment? I'm thinking more about this as we are beginning the Hero(ine)'s Journey in the Body Wisdom Healing Circle this in January. Where is it that we "begin"? What do we need to have in place in order to embark on a journey back to ourselves? Where do we align ourselves for reference? If you haven't signed up for the 2016 Healing Circle we are working through The Hero(ine)'s Journey. We set the space for our beginning in December... and in January we are heeding the Call To Adventure... locating our reference points in the body and mind as we embark on our healing path. 
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I'm working on a huge project that is only tangentially related to my healing practice (more on that later). It's taking a lot of my time and energy... and in my introspective moments I'm learning about my own process for vulnerability. And what it has brought into sharp focus for me is how healing is so very multi-faceted. How it is so much of addressing the physical and emotional realms... and how it is so much more. I've known this for a long time... it's where I work... the intersection between the physical and the subtle bodies. But it's different to be in deep healing myself, and have the opportunity to observe myself moving through it.  What I want to share with you right now is that I see the importance of feeling supported in our healing journey. Usually that means that we have several avenues of support... friends, healing practitioners, partners, family, yoga practices, quiet time... whatever moves you to a place of feeling truly seen, heard, honored... whatever lets you fall deeper inside yourself. When we identify our support avenues, we create our own safety that makes our journey possible. So, while we need others to walk with us, part of our healing is our own work, our own knowing about what it is that we require. When we offer ourselves the time and space for our own process, when we even know what that is, we are poised to take our next step in healing ourselves. So, it turns out that we are our own healers... in part because we show up to our own lives, knowing what we need, willing to invest in the introspection required. Then, when you reach out to your healer-type (acupuncturist, therapist, body worker, energy healer) you have done your part of the work and their expertise can be even more beneficial to you. If you're wanting to increase the support you receive around your self-healing, I lead a free monthly Body Wisdom Healing Circle call. In that call we have a group resonance experience with using our attention in great detail in the body to fuel healing shifts. You can sign up for the call-in number here.  |
Jill CliftonI'm an explorer of inner realms, a pattern observer, and an invitation maker. I believe that healing the world starts within. If you organize your blog conversations through Bloglovin' you can follow me there...
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