Why is Living Seasonally so Important?
I’ve found over the years that one of the most important and profound ways to connect more deeply with myself, the ecosystem around me, and my ancestral lineage is by seasonal connection.
This eco-somatic way of experiencing life is embedded in our bones, and is how all of our ancestors oriented to the living world around them and inside of them.
It’s not been for long that we’ve extracted ourselves from what it means to be humans living rhythmically on this earth. The severance has caused extreme amounts of pain, harm, and disruption, to not only our psyches, physical bodies and deep-soul expressions, but also to the Earth and all of her living inhabitants.
The seasonal rhythms are the container in which we all steep, and all live inside. They are a collective drum that keeps us pulsing in rhythm with one another and the Earth.
When we widen our consciousness to expand understanding of the ecosystem we live inside, we have a much greater awareness of our own experience of life, and how we are related to and interwoven with the greater forces of nature.
At the core of this truth, we find we are a part of something vast, and are able to receive a sense of belonging that we’re all so desperate for.
This basic, and very ancient, human need of belonging lands deep within us. When met, it can soothe nebulous longings, uncertainties, and doubts. It can help us remember our worthiness and our basic goodness.
The seasons also offer us insight into the great circle of life.
The life, death, life cycle perpetually feeds itself, and knows itself more deeply, with each simultaneous passage. We understand how we, too, move in and through these cycles daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and throughout our lives.
We begin to understand the myriad ways we contain Earth within us.
We also honor the feminine by honoring these cycles. We give recognition back to the importance of death, the fallow period, and integration. We give voice back to the sacred spiraling feminine that’s been intentionally and systematically eradicated over these past several thousand years in preference of Patriarchal perpetual growth and linearity.
When we honor seasonal thresholds we not only find footing for our own unfolding path to anchor into, but we also honor the Earth by witnessing the ways she’s changed and grown.
It’s like celebrating a birthday. If we look back over time, a picture of each age we’ve turned, we can see how we’re very much evolved, yet there’s a thread of self that’s perpetually been present, growing and being shaped by our relationships with the external world.
If we don’t stop to notice the ways in which we (and the Earth) have changed and morphed, we lose an opportunity to reflect and discover ourselves and the living world more intimately. We miss out on an embodied knowing of ourselves and our place. And we continue to perpetuate fractures of separation with our relationship with the Earth.
Through seasonal relationship, you get to be witnessed in your unfolding. And you get to witness Earth, as well.
This relational way of living keeps our hearts beating in cadence with the heart of the Earth. And we once again recognize our belonging as part of the Great Song of Life.
Check out the Sacred Seasons Guidebooks for a great way to introduce yourself to the living Earth rhythms and how you belong within them. They are each 45 pages filled with information about the season, the element associated with the season, plant medicines, stone medicine, personal ceremony, altar suggestions, journal prompts, and aligned actions to pursue.
