The sixth of a 7 part series Woman, reWilded on reclaiming cycle wisdom, woman wisdom. in spring season.
It’s the first day of summer and spring seems to have retreated under the grey cloak of La Nina. According to weather reports it was the country’s wettest spring in 10 years and set to continue into summer with the possibility of flooding and cyclones.
In the early days of spring, coming out of winter I felt elated, grounded, purposefully immersed in freestyle rainforest bush regeneration with a three year vision for this small strip of country in Currumbin Valley which included a tiny home. But now I am looking out into the soft mist rising and falling as rain in the valley, feeling the density of stone in my belly. And wondering where all the joy, play and spontaneity that heralded spring has gone.
Spring is called the growing season for a reason. Growth can be painful. Inner spring – from menstruation to ovulation – is the Via Positiva, the masculine, Yang, doing energy. Holding the tension of this creative, productive energy after a period of winter dormancy is challenging me. I notice it is easy to squander this natural verve for outward expression when everything around me is budding, popping and expanding into life.
Yang energy rising in the belly during spring, reaches its peak on 21st December, the Summer Solstice. My fire needs to be guarded; gently tended and stoked lest I burn out by mid-summer. At solstice on the longest daylight of the year, Yin energy is just being born. The message is clear; rest and more rest especially from 11-1pm on 21.12.21 even just for 10 mins, supports my hormone balance, mood and energy levels.
It’s cleansing and purifying to use the month of spring to look at the way I hold onto beliefs, assumptions, emotions, and toxic thoughts. Spring is the Liver Wood energy of Chinese Medicine and the spring season is the most productive time to deep clean the body of stagnant, toxic waste, gently and with compassion for what we have all been through these last two years. The colour green: fresh juices, leafy green vegetables, sprouts and small amounts of vegetable based fats like olive, avocado coconut and nut butters are supportive of hormones and the cleansing process.
But this, this feeling in me is different; it’s more than the undefended fragile self emerging out of the darkness of winter. There is a level of soul exhaustion, depletion and stagnation that transcends the natural ebb and flow of the outer and inner seasons.
In a tender and generous conversation between two eco philosophers, Terry Patten and Stephen Jenkinson titled Overwhelming Beauty – and Being Ok, Dying, springtime gives me cause to reflect on a topic I’ve spent much time contemplating, death: death of freedoms, death of the living world, death of beliefs and old ways of being and doing things. It’s rocky times like these I feel swamped by life, amplified by COVID sanctions, mandates and the bigger picture of climate breakdown.
Whenever I doubt myself or feel hopeless, I turn to the trees. In Qigong this morning our teacher reminds us that trees will accept our stagnant energy in times when we struggle to hold it all together, transmuting it in ways that only trees know how. My gift in return is to keep growing, re generating with flexibility, adaptability and resilience modelling the intelligence and connectivity of trees. Sending peace through my feet, hands and bodies back to Mother Earth by lying on the ground is a legitimate and worthy occupation.
Trees give me place and space to rest my despair stone and allow my belly to breathe deeply. They lead me by the hand into dazzling, wondrous awe: Davidson plum, native gingers, lemon Myrtle, the deafening roar of bees pollinating the pecan trees. All that’s left to do this spring is step outside to bear witness to beauty exploding all around me.
The fleetingness of beauty of the natural world, the goneness of things, grants them an overwhelming presence in your life, says Stephen Jenkinson. He suggests, we have to get good at missing it all, get good at tragedy. “Sometimes the only expression of the beauty of existence is endless tears.,” (2)
In the forest, deep time seems to replace chronological time as the trees share their woody secrets with me. Trust feminine wisdom and masculine energy will be available. Ask for permission to be on country, to plunge hands into my soil. Practise dadirri, deep listening, Watch and wait. Feel safe. Learn how to rest. Be still. They say.
“I only went out for a walk and…..for going out, I found, I was really going in.” John Muir
The forest has taught me more about the giving mutuality of Nature. We need each other but we need trees more than they need us. In the words of Richard Powers in his 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning book, Overstory, “This….what we have been given. What we must earn. This will never end…The most wondrous products of four billion years of life need help. Not them; us. From all quarters.” (3)
References
- The concept of Inner Seasons as a way to understand the stages of the menstrual cycle was originally identified by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer in their book Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power,
- Terry Patten, Overwhelming Beauty – and Being Ok, Dying, Podcast with Stephen Jenkinson
- Richard Power, Overstory, 2018, London, Penguin
