SUMMER NEWSLETTER

May 5, 2008

1st half of summer (May 5 to June 21)
Element of Fire
Sharing, community, pleasure
Transformation

Summer began officially on May 5, 2008. Up here, slightly south of Canada, winter has only now released her grip on us. Like a bad relationship that wouldn’t end, winter came back again and again, asking, “are you sure? It’s really over? There’s no chance we can stay together?” It became just short of ludicrous (rhymes with Lutefisk) as weekend after weekend brought snow, sleet and collective wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So I asked the question, “why was winter continuing to pop back into our lives after only a few days of warmth and sunshine”? I watched what was happening externally, and felt what was taking place internally, and I thought I saw an underlying message from Nature.
Winter, you see, is the energy of drawing inward. Just like pulling an arrow back on a bow, winter pulls us inward, winding us up as we prepare for that big leap forward in the spring. This drawing in, or winding up, determines how far we will fly when that arrow is released. The amount of energy we collected and saved over the winter would be directly related to how far we would fly once spring came.

You may remember spring begins February 4. That is the normal time for us to be leaping forward into action, after 3 months of hibernation. (Winter, in the Chinese 5-element tradition, begins on November 5 and ends on February 4). On top of that cycle is also the six-month feminine cycle, which ends March 21st.

Feminine energy goes within, setting up the laws of attraction to pull resources and old patterns to us. We have this crossover of the masculine and feminine from February 5 to March 21st, where the masculine side of us, our action hero, is ready to burst out of the gate and get things going. That energy is tempered for the 6 weeks between 2/5 and 3/21, until we arrive at the Spring Equinox. For a moment, everything pauses and is still, then the planetary energy reverses direction for the next 6 months. The energy moves very slowly when the direction first changes – hence the need for us to conserve our energy until March 21st. That way, we can use the “arrow-releasing-from-the-bow” to get moving in a new direction.

But this year, we just couldn’t seem to get that action hero off the ground. The weather would warm, the sun would appear, and people came out of their homes in droves. Phones were ringing, dates were being made, parties were planned – and then the snow would come back. Neighborhoods stilled. Plans were broken or postponed. The weather would warm again. Like a jack in the box, we popped out and began making plans of action. Winter would sweep back in and boom! Plans were again disrupted. Everywhere I went, frustration was palpable. When will this harsh winter end, I heard over and over.

It was as though every time we began to launch our arrows, Mother Nature came along and tightened us back up a notch. The image I got was of a child practicing how to shoot an arrow from a bow, and the child’s parent would step in and help draw that bow back further. Each time the child was ready to let the arrow fly, the parent would say “wait, wait, pull back just a little bit further”.

So I asked myself, what is Mother Nature preparing us for? What great thing is coming this summer, which may require such a large reserve of energy? I saw that each time the weather warmed up, we all began to make social plans – let’s meet for coffee, lunch, biking, hiking, catching up. And then the winter would descend and say “really, are you sure this is where you want to spend your energy?” And we were given a reprieve and a chance to say; maybe I would rather spend that energy on something else.

Perhaps it is time for us to socialize in larger groups and less often? Maybe we need to ask ourselves how many relationships we can maintain with integrity? Maybe, just maybe, there is something coming that will require us to have reserves of energy. I can’t predict what that might be, but I do know that we always get advance warning of things to come if we are paying attention.

On May 10, a worldwide event of enormous proportion will be shared across the globe. From villages in Africa, to the Pyramids in Cairo; from Summer Square in London to the beaches of Rio de Janero, people will be gathered to watch powerful images of each other. This is Pangea Day. It will be Woodstock for the World. On this day, we are being given an opportunity to understand that “we are all one”, and that rather than continuing to focus on what makes us different from each other, it is time for us to focus on the things that make us alike. I have seen the incredible synergy that arises when groups find commonality. We all begin to see that our piece of the puzzle, our personal strength, is necessary to the common goal of thriving in the 21st century. Rather than competing in old structures, we begin to amplify each other’s skills. Our creativity increases. Our confidence in ourselves grows. As we share our own particular brand of expertise, we see where we fit into the larger whole.

So perhaps Mother Nature is giving us a chance to shift our global awareness and receive a shot of evolutionary spirituality? Maybe it’s time to merge our polarities. Blend the masculine and the feminine, religion and science, black and white, young and old, creationism and evolution – what would life look like if we went from either/or to and? What if polar opposites could view themselves as two ends of a line, and that the center of that line is the desired outcome? If we polarize at one end of the line, we can always be knocked off center, because we have no center. But if we can stand with one foot on each end of that line, we know where the center is and cannot be easily pushed off. Standing at the center requires understanding the opposites.

Perhaps this is what Winter has been doing – holding us back and back and back, until we have enough reserve built up to stay on center as we are pushed. Since this season is about transformation, what could we do to transform our most deeply held polarities? What will you do?

Peace!

Cat

"...prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came."
Barbara Kingsolver