As the sun rises and sets each day, our wellness is best served by waking up and going to bed with it: up by 6 am and down by 10 pm. Doing so supports energy, focus, and ease. The sun gives us clues: the light of the sun naturally awakens us, the sunset eases us into relaxation, and we begin to feel more tired and ready for bed as the light disappears into darkness. Of course, if you’ve been using artificial means to turn this around - to rally until midnight - it may not be such a coincidence that you need more artificial means to wake up in the morning and keep it all going. If this is you, consider easing out of those artificial means as you shift back into the natural circadian rhythm, especially if you chronically feel unwell.
Similarly, the seasons offer us cues.
Spring represents new beginnings. We see it in nature all around us. We wake up from Winter, the season of looking inward to tap into our light when daylight hours are short, and to recharge. In Spring, we stretch ourselves awake, stretching into our next most radiant selves, and we plant our seeds. What we seed for this new season (in our personal lives) is informed by our reflections in Winter. Spring is planting season, it’s the time of action, of setting things in motion.
Summer represents divine rhythm, aka play! In Summer, we pause, pay attention to, and trust what we’ve set into motion. This is the time to exercise patience and simply nourish our growing seeds as needed, no more. As we bask in the sun’s radiance, we bask in the divine rhythm of it all, and in doing so, we allow ourselves to heal and flourish. And then we begin our shedding process in Fall.
In addition to the times of day and seasons of the year, there are much larger stretches of seasons we experience in our lives; we know when they are for us. Those are the big milestones that affect our lives, like graduations (our own graduation, and then those of our children aka empty nesting), marriages (business and personal), children, and death. Understanding the cues is super helpful in putting them all together in our decision-making process to support vitality, ease, and flow in our lives.
This summer, for me, coincides with my own personal new season, a really big one.
My son, my youngest of the two, graduated college.
I’m watching my 14-year old Labrador mix, now in diapers, age quickly before my eyes.
I’m almost done moving my parents into senior living (one of them needs memory care), and along with this, selling their house and figuring out what to do with their stuff (so much stuff).
After raising my children as a single mom and being the sole adult in this household making decisions for all these years, I will be moving in with another adult - my life partner - out of Chicago’s North Shore and into the city, near the West Loop.
I’m streamlining my business from working with my business partner to going solo, making my work more flexible for my evolving lifestyle, and making it more accessible to the pocketbooks of those that could benefit from my work.
Spring - these last few months - has been super full for me with so much set into motion.
When it started to feel overwhelming, I’d slow everything down.
I’d take myself back to when I learned to ski as a young adult; it can feel so overwhelming to look down at the entire mountain. My instructor had said to look just several feet ahead of me, and I’ll know what to do next.
I’d apply what I know from my years of yoga training: be present with what you are doing right now, this very moment. There is no other moment but this one. Do it well, as if this is your whole life, and enjoy it. The moment I think about what else I need to do while in the depths of something else, it cracks. My calendar, the timer, and having all my notifications on silent is a life saver.
As we approach the first day of Summer - June 20 - I am already feeling the ease of it. All motion has been set.
Of course I question decisions, there were so, so many to make. But as I question them, I answer them: trust your decisions. You know what you are doing. The difficult decisions have been made, now drive the ship. Even when things feel hard, it’s all good. Hard doesn’t mean any decisions were wrong. It means I get to reach out for support. Or it means I get to pause and work through my emotions. With big change come big emotions. And boy, did I have them, especially with unresolved baggage I had with my parents coming up to the surface. I’m blessed to have people around me to talk to. I’m lucky to be able to allow myself to recognize that and to talk to them. We all have people to talk to, we do. I remember when I didn’t think I did, and deciding to change my mind on that changed my life.
There’s still work to do. Weeds to pull out, things to water. And also, the sun and rain does much of the work. The nourishment of the sun’s rays strengthens my nervous system so that I am strong enough to slow down and dance with the rhythms I’ve set into motion. I am so grateful.
May Summer begin!
Love, Savitree
Beautiful Louie. Good morning sunrise ☀️.