We Do Not Experience The Seasons The Same…

The way we experience the seasons is not a cookie-cutter thing. It also can change when we are different stages (ages) in our life. As I have aged and deepened in my own practices, my movement in the seasons have also changed. What movement they represent is different for me.

Summer and I are not Friends

When I was young summer was freedom. It encompassed the months of free movement, exploration, experiences, and new discoveries. I loved the warmth of the sun on my skin, the way it lightened my hair, giving me that fresh and glowing feeling. It was the super busy time of my year where action was concerned.

The deeper I have surrendered to my spiritual path and the work of it – the older I became and my time was no longer dictated by school schedules (mine or my children’s) – the more this has changed. Is it aging or my path that has had the bigger influence, who knows, but the reason isn’t the question here. The question is do I fight it and keep trying to fit in the box of others or do I embrace my own? I think we all know the answer – I surrender to my own.

While others may feel energized and super active in the summer months – I am not. Summer is my slow time, less action and more nurturing. I do not do well in the heat, and our summer months (June to mid September) have become unbearable with heat and humidity. I find myself spending less and less time outside during the daylight hours, saving that for the liminal and night times.

In my practices, Summer is a time of nurturing and observing. From Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox is the time of dreaming, creating in the mind, seeing where my focus should be to achieve whatever goal or work I want accomplish, and developing my plan. In the Spring I am putting the plan into action, planting the seeds, experimenting and adjusting along the way. When Summer comes, it is my time of Harmonious Inaction – a time to sit back and just nurture all I have done. To protect it and watch it grow to see where it goes. Then in the Fall it will be time to reap the harvest of it, reflect on what went well and what failed, celebrate the work, heal, regenerate, and transform in the wisdom of it. The wheel will turn and I will start the movement all over again.

Summer is not my busy season – it is my season to sit back, relax, and observe.

Solar Magic

Just because the physical sun and I are not aligned the way we were when I was young, does not diminish the magic there. I am just working in it differently. It represents power, the movement of growing and maturing, the aspects of the Guardian, movement of the critical and discerning mind.

Ushar is my Divine that reflects these attributes for me because of His role with the Mother of Souls, Exsu. He protects the Mother, Her domain, Her work. He provides the space for Her work to be done. He brings in the resources needed so She can focus on the work. She can not do what She does without Him, and She is the reason why, and how, He moves. Equal in power but not the same.

All of this influences how and why I personally work Solar Magic. My solar magic is directly connected to these understandings. I am a Death worker though, a Spirit Walker, and I am sure this is one reason why it represents this way for me. For someone whose path is more the body healer or green witch, I am sure this looks very different. One of the reasons why I don’t think we can follow a set idea of these things, but we need to discover how these energies work for us and our personal work.

A Journey

It took a long time to deconstruct the conditioned responses to the seasons and movement in them. The way others said to view and work in them. The way many Wheel’s of the Year frame them. It was even harder because I had more alignment with those when I was young, but age and embracing my own path changed it. Even this year I struggled a bit, but also came to places of deeper understanding and foundations in that.

As we grow older, perceptions change, the rhythms our lives follow changes. As we grow spiritually and along our own path, the same things happen. Instead of trying to hold onto them, I choose to let them go. I embrace the changes and look forward to the new life that emerges from them. Yes, it makes it difficult when moving within the larger community, and those who see it differently, because when I speak they do not feel it. However, I am not alone in feeling this way about Summer, and by sharing, perhaps they feel a little less alone and it gives them the confidence to embrace their own movements in it.

Summer is my least favorite season but it is not just about the heat. Slowing down is hard. Being in a place of Harmonious Inactivity (a heavy lesson this year) makes me feel lazy. This time is really important though. If we are always doing – always creating – then we never realize the full potential of the creation, we are always on the surface of the creation and building more around it. We need the time to observe and be present with what we have created. To see beyond our limited vision of it and allow it to show us all the potentials of it.

There is a lesson there too in spiritual evolution. If you are always working in a linear fashion to grow, evolve, and transform – If this path looks like a set of goals, instead of an ever evolving adventure – If you are always in the throws of shadow work or a state of needing to expand – you will eventually feel stuck or burnt out because you are never really embodying the changes being brought about. There has to be a balance of growth and then the quiet embodiment – living the growth. This is what Summer teaches me, and Winter teaches others. The blessing in living our path.