Do cycles help refine your life?

Zenscape by Peter Wylly

Have you ever thought of time as series of patterns? Seeing the seconds, minutes, hours not as a looming threat, but instead as a drumbeat of cycles that present us a structure to design and create with?
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Time patterns are macro and micro; broad-scale and small-scale. Long and short. Bright and dark. Hot and cold.

Year after year, seasonal patterns happen. Daily patterns happen. Solar patterns roll around each year. Lunar patterns happen each month.

They are all markers in our life experience (whether we see them or not).

And they are especially useful – resources to help orient ourselves, our projects, our check-ins and our energy output.

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The nature of a cycle is that it has a beginning, middle section/s, and an end.

The sun through the year has it’s beginning at the Winter Solstice. The days wax in length through the mid-point of equal day and equal night at the Spring Equinox. Daylight shines it’s longest and brightest at the Summer Solstice, and then slowly starts to decline. The Autumn Equinox again marks equal day and equal night as the days shorten towards their dullest shine at the Winter Solstice.

Each day begins with a sunrise, peaks at midday, declines with sunset, and lays in full darkness at midnight.

The moon is dark and not visible at the new moon. Half seen at the first-quarter and third-quarter moons. And shining full and bright at the full moon.

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Here’s the thing. Regardless of where we’re at in any of these, each distinctive point of the cycle provides an opportunity for us to utilise for reflection, intention-setting and awareness of what’s happening in our lives.

The peak point of the cycle (e.g. Summer Solstice and full moon) are times of outwardness, high activity, the obvious and illuminated. The low point of each cycle (e.g. Winter Solstice and new moon) are cold, dark, inward, subtle, slow.

Neither point in the cycle is better than another – each inviting us into a different part of ourselves.

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For extra definition and detail, meaning can be assigned to the different cycles to reflect different aspects of ourselves.

The Sun might represent how your light is shining in the world: with the Winter Solstice a time of intention-setting, and the Summer Solstice a time of illumination and reflection on how you’re shining.

The Moon might represent your feelings and emotions: setting intentions for these with the new moon, and reflecting and expressing these at the full moon.

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The beauty of time as patterns and cycles is the predictability. Predictable allows for self-organisation, and provides structure and framework to orient ourselves and know what to expect.

If we know how to read the patterns of the earth’s movements around the sun (the solar cycle), then we effectively have a drumbeat of seasons structuring how we operate and a lattice work to create around.

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Here are some questions you might like to consider regarding patterns and cycles in your life:

• What patterns and cycles do you utilise to orient and engage with life?
• How could you further utilise the essence of each part of the cycle to support your life journey?
• What other cycles do you naturally experience in life that you can use to help guide and refine how you live your life?

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Patterns and cycles are a resource for us humans to utilise to refine our essence, and thrive in our individual and collective missions in the world.

Let yourself dance to their beat and, piece by piece, create an authentic, real and deeply fulfilling reality.

 x Erin

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Composite image of a moon cycle by Keith Anderson