The Seasons of the Soul

They talk about the dark night of the soul as a time of trial, of clarification, and of moving through to a new level of being. When we emerge into the dawn after that dark night, we have greater clarity and insight, we vibrate at a higher level.  Sometimes, through this process, we are forced to let go of beliefs that no longer serve us, of attitudes that limit us and of fears that hold us back from living our highest potential.

I agree with all this.  And I'd like to offer an additional thought.  The idea of a night is just a tad too short for me!  To me, it feels as though our souls have seasons; cycles through which we pass, sequentially and with some degree of regularity.

I think I am in the winter cycle... and the reason this has been so confusing to me is because I thought that being pregnant would mean that I was in spring - full of fresh new energy and ideas... feeling dynamic and ready to go.  How wrong I was! 

As you may have noticed over the past few months, I haven't posted so frequently.  This is because I have fought this Winter of the Soul.  These cycles are different for everyone and, even between cycles, I suspect there is a degree of difference, only characterised by a few principles.

For me, this time has been such a battle - a fight to not feel so lethargic, weak and depressed.  It's only this weekend that I realised that I was making this process worse.  By resisting the cycle, by figthing it, by wanting to be energetic when I had no energy, to have clarity whin I felt like a dense fog at night, I was getting in my own way.

Now, I've finally accepted what is.  I'm no longer fighting it.  Before taking on such an archetypal role as motherhood, it stands to reason that there are aspects of myself that I need to release, in order to clear emotional space for this new identity to emerge.

What I have learnt is this: it doesn't always pay to fight.  Sometimes it pays to honour the flow of what is.  There is a wisdom in knowig when to resist, when to persist and when to desist.  It takes time to understand the flow, to know when to push and when to allow: when to flow through life; to have highs and lows; to know creative, productive times and to experience creative, 'fallow' times, is all part of the natural cycle of life - night to day, season to season - and so too, our lives flow through cycles.

It takes time to become attuned to these cycles, to work with them rather than against them, to have the courage to go through the Winter of the Soul, accepting that we will emerge slightly different, is part of the art of being human, of living the Magic of the Ordinary, of seeing the Miracle hidden in what appears to be the Mud of our lives.