I take the full month of December to step back from doing energy work for others and concentrate on my own ‘stuff’. Listening to what I may have ignored, asking what I wish to bring forward into the next year, deciding what can be cleared and what can be integrated. This culminates on Winter Solstice, the shortest day, as my shift from one year to the next – my New Year if you will. It’s something I’ve been doing for many years, and it works for me.
It is a boundary of sorts and it is, in the main, respected.
Why am I writing this when I should be stepping away?
- It was my choice to flex my boundaries, just a little.
- There is something wishing to be heard and acknowledged as I writ
It will resonate or it won’t.
Cycles, shifts and patterns
Many of us, have over time, become ‘detached’ from the cycles of nature – the shifting of the seasons and the subtle change in energy they bring.
Winter has long been a time of slowing down and deep rest. A time to lay the foundations for the new seeds to be planted and reflect on what has passed in the last 12 months. Instead, many can build themselves into a frenzy to get things down “before the 25th”. I call it festive chaos, or, when it’s really intense, festive panic as that’s the energy the Collective seems to hold and project. And yes, I fall into it for a time, here and there. Until I remember it is Collective and can move it out of my energy system.
People can find themselves utterly frazzled and unable to keep going, occasionally falling unwell as layers of stress become too much. The forced jollity that can take them to the point that they may start to resent the full month, instead of being allowed to ease into it at their own pace.
When you take the time to stop and observe nature what is she showing you?
Observe the dropping of the sap as deciduous trees go into slumber. Become aware of many animals going into hibernation to sleep through the worst of the weather. and sense the birds becoming calmer, except on those bitterly cold days when they are searching for food and water. The weather becomes oddly still and calm.
It’s the slowing down point of the year. It’s an annual cycle which we all know but can ignore in the rush to get everything done.
Would it be so bad to postpone meet ups, catch ups and more to January when everyone has more time? When the energy has settled as we fully move into Winter and become a little more relaxed within it. It really wouldn’t, but we are conditioned, for some reason, to go ‘hell for leather’ in one month rather than spread out across three.
And as for Hogmanay (New Year), I have always found the 31st of December to be perplexing. It’s portrayed to be a happy joy filled time. Yet even from childhood I have found it to be dark, depressing and false. This forced “yay it’s New Year!” is in complete opposition to what nature is showing us. I avoid it completely yet oddly do not begrudge those who adore it and can find the light in it. We all have our own personal seasonal cycle and it too, varies from person to person.
Personal Seasonal Cycles?
Until I started writing, I hadn’t really contemplated the concept of personal seasonal cycles. That’s the gift of stepping back and observing. The message has to be conveyed and heard without distraction or interference. I’m finding this very interesting as my intention when I started was to speak on something very different but I’ve to sit with that one myself a while longer…
I’ve been aware of the cycles or patterns over the years but never really given my full attention to them. It may be I am speaking to someone who has already twigged this and needs no further confirmation. If that is the case – thank you for holding that space for me to catch up. I got there in the end *wry smile*.
I know from experience that extreme heat (fire) and extreme cold (ice) are not for me. Given I work with both these energies on a daily basis, the irony is not lost on me.
My personal preference is the ‘in-between’ space – Spring and Autumn hold that for me. I feel more myself in both these seasons. Waking up in the Spring to tend the seeds planted for the year, creating new ideas and energies. And in Autumn reaping the harvest, embracing the abundance and all the colour it holds. I may be somewhat biased as my hair has been every colour you can find in Autumn, at some stage in my life.
Is this linked to me being born in Taurus with Leo ascending? Possibly, or it may be sheer co-incidence. But there is a pattern in my behaviour and energies. Which I will now work with rather than against.
If the creativity, new ideas and ah-ha moments come when I’m waking up then that’s where I’ll concentrate my attention. It makes no sense for me to push in the seasons where I’m either ‘closing down’ or ‘non receptive’. Simply writing the words is a huge Ah Ha moment right there. A bit like full moon versus new moon – one works for me and the other doesn’t. Possibly not the way round you may assume…
Over to You
Are the Summer months your most favourite time of the year where you feel happiest and most relaxed?
Or perhaps Winter with the snowy cold crisp days, hot chocolate and cold bright starry skies sing to you the loudest.
My challenge to you, if you wish it, is to sit with each season. Be it meteorologically going by the 1st March, 1st June, 1st September and 1st December. Or energetically marked by Equinox and Solstice in those same months.
Ask what each means to you. Go as deep as you feel comfortable with. As the deeper the go the more information you may glean about yourself and what makes you tick.
If journalling is a tool that works for you, then do that. Or, story board – if that resonates. Use your art or your skill with storytelling. I do none of these incidentally, these are just suggestions. You begin to see a pattern emerging.
Once you do, you can take this blue-print with you for your own work. Refer back to it and check regularly in case it changes over time as you change and shift.
Re-connect with nature in each season and allow yourself to reset your natural clock.
Find what works for you and embrace it, work with it. Yours will be different to everyone else.
It the differences in life that create the magic.
by Cheryl McGregor, Dragon Ascension Therapies
Read more from Cheryl McGregor.
Article published in Edition 61
