We are an embodiment of nature. Nature lives inside our bodies and minds. We can allow expression of nature and it’s cyclical nature within us or we can bypass its currents that flow within us.
Nature is circular and cyclical. Through her seasons and elements we understand and experience different shades of our own existence. We can relate with our own self better if we understand nature.
Nature in the season of spring brings hope, aliveness, freshness, joy, cheer, inspiration and new beginnings. We seed what we wish to bring to fruition.
Nature in the season of summer brings culmination to what we might have seeded in spring. It is about culmination of our own actions, work, passions, purpose, coming together of what we started and enjoying that. It’s about blossoming and fruition. The seeds sown and brought to life in spring come to full expression in the season summer.
Nature in the season of autumn begins the process of slowing down and shedding. It evokes the sense of reviewing our lives, how far along we have come, what do we need to do next, where do we let go, where do we need to slow down and what closures await us. It begins the process of retreating. Nature in her letting go and shedding phase brings it’s own beauty.
We never judge a tree that has slowed down its growth and is shedding its leaves. We stand in awe of this beauty of nature.
We become admirers and are awed by her magnificence at every turn.
We appreciate this slowing down. We stand in wonderment of this process of dying.
We admire nature in her birthing phase. Our heart sings when she is in her blossoming phase. And our bodies stand in childlike wonderment during her slowing down phase.
After autumn, nature makes her presence with winter. In her nude, barren state, when all the leaves have shed and all the growth has died down, she rejoices and stands tall in her void and emptiness, patiently awaiting her rebirth.
In this void, in this stillness, in this death, there is still a feeling of being complete and whole. I personally have rejoiced barren empty trees as much as I have been in awe of a tree pregnant with hope and desire and birthing new leaves, new life.
Death and Rebirth…new beginnings, life to its full bloom, slowing down and death. Nature’s glory in all her seasons and cycles teaches us humans so many things.
We often tend to question our existence or our worthiness when things take a turn or slow down or don’t go as desired. When cycles end – of work, relationships, money, career, passion or purpose, it makes us very uncomfortable. It makes us question our sense of worthiness and adequacy. We have glorified progress with work and stillness or emptiness as being unproductive and hence unworthy.
Winter may become present in different areas of our lives individually and collectively. Sometimes we experience an ending of a relationship or sometimes a career. The emptiness makes us question our existence. We grieve the death of these areas and we question the little deaths we have undergone all our lives.
We may often look at nature whole and complete, still and beautiful in her barrenness and yet we may question and fight with, be uncomfortable with this emptiness and barrenness inside of us.
We adore, admire and honor nature. We know we are nature. And yet, our yearning creates a sort of friction and perhaps a subliminal resistance to accept our own winter, in its truest sense.
Can we use the winter of our lives to just BE? Can we honor the beauty of stillness, stuckness, slowness, pause, barrenness and emptiness?
Can acceptance of this void – fully, make us pregnant with hope and desire again?
Can we patiently wait and most importantly accept this phase of our cycle without having the desire to rush through or bring completion to this death inside or outside?
Can we grieve fully what we perceive we may have lost and yet rest in the beauty that is, of winter?
Can we honor our inner winter today, fully?
Header Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich