In Autumn the soil in the paddocks would be ploughed and turned over in readiness for the first rains. This was the sowing season. In winter the new shoots would sprout bright green from the moist soil. Spring was the time for growing and developing, and summer, bringing dry heat, was the season of ripening and harvesting. This cycle was repetitive and constant.
This winter morning I woke to the sound of gentle rain, the sound gradually increasing to maintain a steady rhythm.
If I allow my body to tune into this sound, there is an appreciation for the life-giving properties of water. Where I live now we are dependent on rain to fill the tanks for the household supply of water. In this climate the wet season is in summer, and winter can be weeks of dry sunny weather without any rain.
Now the rain has increased its intensity, and will be washing everything clean and soaking into the garden and replenishing the trees, the waterways, and the dams. Frogs and birds will be celebrating.
Spring is around the corner. I could feel it in the air yesterday, the warmth in the air, heralding a perfume of blossoms.
The seasons remind me that we live in cycles. Spinning around the sun, hurtling through space and rotating at the same time at unimaginable speeds, the climate of our particular position on planet earth reflects our position in space.
My body doesn’t feel this unfathomable movement through space; it is aligned to the movement of earth, and held by gravity so that I don’t fall off.
It is easy to live a whole year without paying much attention to this fact of cycles. We have adopted a linear interpretation of this spherical truth, and convinced ourselves that we are ‘going somewhere’. For example we tend to think that a year can be measured by its success or failure according to what we have achieved, done, won, and acquired.
But what if success was defined by how we have lived each season, each day, each moment?
This time next year we will be in the same place in space, we have not gone anywhere different from last year and all our previous years and lifetimes of travelling around and around the sun.
What if we made success about how we have loved?
At the end of each year do we review our relationships? Have they evolved? How loving and respectful have we been of our bodies, of our work colleagues, of our homes? For example looking after our bodies with nourishing food and sleep and exercise will support us into old age to remain vital.
What if we did away with ranking and drive and judgment, none of which are loving behaviours, and instead chose to value everything we do as of equal value?
Yesterday I had the freedom to construct my day as I pleased. At one point I asked my body what it would like to do next. It answered, fold the washing, and do some ironing. I love these chores, I settled into a gentle rhythm and at the end of the ironing my dear husband had fifteen beautifully ironed handkerchiefs to take to work each day.
My body didn’t ask me to try hard, to force anything, to be smart, to do something for recognition, to strain in any way, but this simple domestic ritual brought me to a place of harmony and stillness that then established the quality of the momentum for the next activity of the day.
What if we made success about how joyful and harmonious we feel?
We live in cycles, travelling around the sun, returning to the same spot each season, every year until we die. Every month brings a lunar cycle for our bodies to attune to. Each day is a cycle, every morning a new opportunity to choose love as our foundation, to appreciate who we are, to accept that we are exactly where we are meant to be.
What if we woke each morning knowing that there is nothing to prove to anyone, that being ourselves is everything?
Living in cycles we are tuning in to the wonder of God and the Universe.
Bernadette C., Australia
This winter morning I woke to the sound of gentle rain, the sound gradually increasing to maintain a steady rhythm.
If I allow my body to tune into this sound, there is an appreciation for the life-giving properties of water. Where I live now we are dependent on rain to fill the tanks for the household supply of water. In this climate the wet season is in summer, and winter can be weeks of dry sunny weather without any rain.
Now the rain has increased its intensity, and will be washing everything clean and soaking into the garden and replenishing the trees, the waterways, and the dams. Frogs and birds will be celebrating.
Spring is around the corner. I could feel it in the air yesterday, the warmth in the air, heralding a perfume of blossoms.
The seasons remind me that we live in cycles. Spinning around the sun, hurtling through space and rotating at the same time at unimaginable speeds, the climate of our particular position on planet earth reflects our position in space.
My body doesn’t feel this unfathomable movement through space; it is aligned to the movement of earth, and held by gravity so that I don’t fall off.
It is easy to live a whole year without paying much attention to this fact of cycles. We have adopted a linear interpretation of this spherical truth, and convinced ourselves that we are ‘going somewhere’. For example we tend to think that a year can be measured by its success or failure according to what we have achieved, done, won, and acquired.
But what if success was defined by how we have lived each season, each day, each moment?
This time next year we will be in the same place in space, we have not gone anywhere different from last year and all our previous years and lifetimes of travelling around and around the sun.
What if we made success about how we have loved?
At the end of each year do we review our relationships? Have they evolved? How loving and respectful have we been of our bodies, of our work colleagues, of our homes? For example looking after our bodies with nourishing food and sleep and exercise will support us into old age to remain vital.
What if we did away with ranking and drive and judgment, none of which are loving behaviours, and instead chose to value everything we do as of equal value?
Yesterday I had the freedom to construct my day as I pleased. At one point I asked my body what it would like to do next. It answered, fold the washing, and do some ironing. I love these chores, I settled into a gentle rhythm and at the end of the ironing my dear husband had fifteen beautifully ironed handkerchiefs to take to work each day.
My body didn’t ask me to try hard, to force anything, to be smart, to do something for recognition, to strain in any way, but this simple domestic ritual brought me to a place of harmony and stillness that then established the quality of the momentum for the next activity of the day.
What if we made success about how joyful and harmonious we feel?
We live in cycles, travelling around the sun, returning to the same spot each season, every year until we die. Every month brings a lunar cycle for our bodies to attune to. Each day is a cycle, every morning a new opportunity to choose love as our foundation, to appreciate who we are, to accept that we are exactly where we are meant to be.
What if we woke each morning knowing that there is nothing to prove to anyone, that being ourselves is everything?
Living in cycles we are tuning in to the wonder of God and the Universe.
Bernadette C., Australia