The Cycle of Seasons

The core of our practice is in the marking of cycles. The most obvious cycle that we experience all the time is the cycle of the year. Where I live now, at the lakeside in a temperate zone, I find it easy to mark the passing of each season, as the weight of freezing cold and the burden of humidity press down on me in turns. Even when I lived in the desert, though, this cycle made itself manifest; I just had to look a little harder for the signs.

In the summer, for instance, we celebrate connection and plenty, as we have it; we remember isolation and famine, as we look both backwards and forwards to it; and we take comfort in the coming fall and winter that will give rest and replenishment of the soil.

This a wonderful metaphor for many things, but taking it literally is important, too. It may seem that, with all our modern conveniences, those of us who live in the imperial core are decoupled - or, perhaps, severed - from the necessities and consequences of the seasons, but this is not so. To give just one example, food is still more expensive and scarce in the winter, and if we don't feel it, it is only because those costs are being born by others.