Seasons

I would imagine you’re all expecting a Christmas or New Year based article, but that’s just too clichéd; especially as I feel that the season is vastly over-rated in the emotional scheme of things.

We invest so much in half a dozen days in a year, believing that one day brings us happiness and another allows us to set up the next twelve months of living. Yet life is fluid, ever-changing and developing, and a decision made yesterday can need amending today in order to stay relevant.

So how can we approach life to get more out of living it? How can we avoid investing so much emotional energy in one short season and instead invest our emotions in every waking moment of our lives?

I don’t know a lot about Hedgewitches but I do know that they live with the seasons. For them winter is about rest; spring about sowing; summer about growing and autumn is about reaping. This isn’t a bad way to live as it allows you to make a broad plan, do some sowing, tend all your plants, reap the strongest and plough the weakest back into the earth as manure for future emotional plantings.

Winter:

It’s a good idea to plan to rest and take stock of your life once a year. If you’re a person who suffers from lack of sunlight then it can be renewing to have a winter holiday and reflect on your life from a distance.

In the 21st Century we seem to go on and on, living on a treadmill, subject to other peoples’ needs, pressured by work and dominated by finances. If you consider winter-time to be one of quiet reflection then effectively you are starting to break that pattern, and to train those around you to realise that you will take a regular rest and will not be at their beck and call 24/7/365.
 
You are also training people, particularly your children, to rest and take stock, and that is a great gift for the future – especially as life shows no sign of slowing down.

Winter is also a time when good intentions give way to warm fires, hot cocoa and lethargy. Allow it to be so and make your resolutions when your sap has risen and you’re ready to go out and tackle life again.

Spring:

So the sap has risen, the evenings are lighter, the winter pounds have gone on and you’re ready to tackle all that because you’ve taken stock of your life and you have some plans in place; now start sewing them.
Allow yourself to feel refreshed and renewed by nature, take time to observe how it flowers again after a long winter sleep, and allow yourself to unfold and stretch out your arms and your energy towards the sun.

Make a list of your plans, prioritise and start making those changes to your life. However, sometimes it’s a good idea initially to tackle not the most important things but the things easily dealt with because that will give you a real sense of accomplishment and make the bigger things easier to tackle. After all, it’s always a good idea to warm up those muscles before you undertake the really heavy lifting!

Summer:

Plans are underway, the weather is hot (ok so I’m an optimist) and it’s just too sunny to do too much. This is another time of reflection, the seeds have been planted and watered, the shoots have risen from the earth and now the flowers are coming out.

This is the time to ask whether you like the changes you’ve created. How well they are working and whether you need to do a bit of pruning. We can have the greatest plans in our minds but sometimes they just don’t work the way we think they will, so don’t be afraid to reach for the secateurs and chop off the bits that aren’t flourishing. Focus only on what is going really well.

Autumn:

You’ve sowed, you’ve planted, you’ve watered, you’ve pruned. Now you should be reaping the benefits of all that work. Reflect back on the year. Were your plans good ones? How much did they suit you? How well are they working? Have you remained flexible and been ready to tweak things in order to improve them? Or have you planted a tree you don’t like and now you’re nurturing it because - dammit - you planted it?

Be really honest, living a life that doesn’t suit you won’t do you any good, nor will it benefit those around you.

And we’re back to winter.

So...

How has this year gone? Have you felt more empowered by living with the seasons, resting, pushing change through, resting when the change really hots up, and reaping actual plans rather than drifting through life collecting all kinds of unexpected dross because you were drifting at the water’s edge rather than swimming with the dolphins?

If you think that’s a weird analogy thing of the flotsam and jetsam at the sea shore and compare it to the joyous miracle of swimming in a beautiful warm sea surrounded by some of the earth’s most amazing creatures.

The idea of this article has been to give you time to rest and plan. To focus you away from making optimistic decisions on one day a year and then spending the other 364 beating yourself up for failing miserably.

You can stop smoking at any time. You can lose weight at any time but you’re much more likely to exercise when the weather is good, whereas if you make a fitness resolution on 31st December you will more than likely be comfort eating by the 10th of January when you haven’t gone out jogging as you promised you would (in the snow, sleet, slush and freezing temperatures).

Pneumonia doesn’t make you fit so it is actually better to plan fitness in the winter and execute in the spring.

So, take the pressure off yourself. Spend 3 months planning, 3 months working on those plans, 3 months observing and pruning and at the end of that time you should spend the autumn revelling in your own success.

If you plan, if you act, and if you remain flexible and open to opportunities, and if you never, ever underestimate the need for rest and quiet reflexion.

Happy All Year for 2010

© Deb Hawken 2010
www.dancing-star.org.uk