Screen Shot 2016-12-21 at 18.04.46In this era of abundance of and easy access to intense experiences, there seems to be the tendency to try and cram in as much as possible. Entertainment, festivals, self-development workshops, plant medicine rituals, erotic encounters…we are intensity junkies, our lives a blur, hungrily going from one experience to the next.

The culture of cramming – embedded in a Capitalist, linear system – is a result of our forgetting about the value and importance of cyclical living.

Cyclical living is looking at the natural world around us and its cycles, and seeing how if we wish to live in balance, we cannot value one part of the cycle over another. Cyclical living helps us make the most of and truly honour the deeper experiences we create for ourselves in life.

In the ‘Winter’ or dark moon phase, there is no movement, only stillness and the unknown. This is the phase that gives us the spaciousness to connect with either our rational minds or our intuition and discover what we are drawn to. What will actually serve us? What do we really desire or need? What feels right or what makes sense? When we find our inspiration we move into Spring, or the waxing moon phase…we feel anticipation, we tune in, connect to our intention or do whatever other preparation we need to do. Summer, or full moon and it’s time to immerse ourselves into the experience. Because of the previous two phases that have been honoured, we can really dive deep! Finally, it’s the Autumn or the waning moon part of the cycle and the time for allowing our experience to percolate in our system, to feel the afterglow, to integrate, reflect on what we will take with us and what we have learned.

In an economic system that focuses on constant growth and productivity (the ‘summer’ phase) it is not surprising that we adopt this in our personal lives, even those of us who do not feel particularly supportive of Capitalist principles.

But by going from one intense experience to another and skipping most of the cycle, we are not really honouring our experiences or engaging with life as deeply as we could be. We tend to make poorer decisions, are less present, end up just going through the motions and diminish our capacity for learning. And we are often disrespectful to people and plants (in plant medicine rituals) as a result.

Cyclical Living can be applied to many things, including the way we manifest projects and do business. Wow, would life be different if we looked to nature (and our wombs, for they are also cyclical) for wisdom and inspiration!