Honouring the creative cycle:
Guidance from the greater universal rhythms
Photographer: A. Aubrey Bodine, c.1940.
Most of us understand and buy into the ritual of celebrating the new year, as a major cycle of ending-beginning. However, I find it can be quite overwhelming to do such a singular and grand review - even judge yourself, on how you measured up against what has, or hasn’t been achieved, across the expanse of a calendar year.
It can be more meaningful and accessible to sync with the smaller ebbs and flows of natural cycles. More regular honouring, review and reflection may offer ways to ensure energy and action is expressed in more meaningful and sustainable ways.
It’s easy to see how we’ve lost these connections though.
We live, work and play in artificial climates, many of us no longer work the land ourselves so have no need to pay attention to how things live, grow and die as part of the greater cosmic rhythms.
What would happen if we paid greater attention to the very observable cycles of the sun, the moon and season?
How might moving in rhythm change or shift creativity, productivity, relationships, energy and wellbeing?
In nature, there are cycles within cycles. Big ones and small ones. Shorter ones and longer ones. Each phase has a place, and offers its own gifts and tasks that contribute to the greater cycle and rhythm. As such, we can use what each season or phase offers, to act as a guide to reflect on inner processes.
Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes poetically describes the cyclical phases that marry to nature's rhythms as Incubation - the Quickening - the Zenith - Entropy.
image source unknown
⚫️ Incubation - Darkness, Late evening-predawn, the New Moon, Winter, Winter Solstice.
Something has come to an end. A project, a job, an idea, a relationship that you’ve taken as far as it can go. It can feel like a death and loss of sorts.
When we let things die off, there’s the opportunity for something new to come. That said, it can be hard to let something go, especially if it’s provided you with pleasure, achievement, esteem, and security in the predictable and known. If you tap into and allow dark, quiet time to be still, rest, and restore, the quality of relaxation and openness may help you better see, hear, and sense the initial sparks of Divine inspiration and new life coming in. So it’s also the beginning. The rebirth. The point where the creative cycle starts again.
Suggestions for enquiry during Incubation:
What has ended/ died / gone as far as it can? How will I grieve this “loss”?
How do I need to support and nourish myself? Is there something blocking me from taking pause and rest?
How do I sense a new beginning rumble deep inside me? What does the pulse of creativity feel like in my body-mind-soul?
☾ Quickening – Sunrise and Daylight, Waning moon, Spring, Spring Equinox.
Observe a seed of an idea taking root in the dark well-nourished soil of your soul. Here the light of day calls you out from the darkness to notice growth bursting forth, tendrils moving out. Like a labour and birth.
Spring is a time of innovation and raw creativity as you tinker and experiment with making your idea into something real. You might see yourself articulating your intentions and making plans, setting goals, testing out new ways, new ideas, seeking information and knowledge, cleansing and clearing space for the work. Making yourself and your space beautiful.
This might feel exhilarating and chaotic, as growth can be rapid and unruly until it settles into flow. Perhaps multiple tendrils sprout from the one idea, or multiple ideas sprout tendrils in different directions so you need to prune back and choose (for the moment) which direction to take as not all ideas can be followed to fruition.
Suggestions for enquiry during the Quickening:
How do I call myself back out into the light from the dark? Is this easy or hard for me?
From the seed idea, what are the first tentative, preliminary steps and actions I can make toward manifestation?
How can I be discerning about the best tendril to place my attention on?
How might I sabotage this natural movement or shut down this growth potential? How can I encourage it instead?
Odilon Redon - Gli occhi chiusi, 1894
⚪️ Zenith - Broad daylight, Full Moon, Summer, Summer Solstice
This is the highest point in the cycle, where there’s an amplification of power and energy.
It’s a time for action as the more vague creative impulse and unruly tendrils are trimmed and refined to make way for manifestation. You’re in doing mode.
Your initial idea or spark is becoming real. Your body feels strong and full of vitality. Your mind is clear. Your project is well underway. Your product is tangible. Your relationship feels solid, and is getting physical! Movement, energy and LIFE is reaching its peak.
Money, power, physical stuff, stability, knowledge, confidence, recognition, connection. This typically feels lovely and bright. It’s natural to want more and for it to not stop. So take care to note when greed and addiction to pleasure and power take over. When this energy is mined to the point of depletion, overwhelming burnout can happen.
Suggestions for enquiry during the Zenith:
How does it feel in my body-mind to be in peak flow, power? What is my relationship to success and power?
In what way might I sabotage manifestation energy and access my power?
Do I finish things? Where do I get stuck or side tracked? How does this show up in my body, mind, spirit?
☽ Entropy and Decline: Sun set and early evening, Waxing moon, Harvest moon, Autumn, Autumnal equinox
While it can feel good, we can’t forever be in rising energy and zenith. If you’re attuned to your body, it will tell you to slow down. However, societal and cultural values will often encourage you to curb or ignore these signals and keep producing, pushing, to be ”on” and in doing mode.
Do this at your peril. Personal experience and observation proves that if you do not listen to body and soul telling you “enough!”, it will just shut down on you. Physical illness, depression, burn out.
Autumn is a time to gather and review what you’ve created and assess how things went. Celebrate or acknowledge your success, achievement, and abundance. Toss out what didn’t work or wasn’t for you, store for later what couldn’t be followed through this time, press pause on something that arose but you weren’t ready for, file away that tangent that was good but wrong timing.
Practice to not make things personal. It’s a great skill to develop an attitude of detached benevolence, “you did good, but that’s enough for now”.
Suggestions for enquiry during Entropy:
What’s my experience of slowing down and leaving things in good timing? What is it like for me to let go?
What have I learnt through this process? What worked? What didn’t work? What will I keep? What will I leave forever or for much later?
Can I have an attitude of kindness toward myself as I do my review?
And now back to INCUBATION and winter ⇢⇢