the year as a wheel
The Earth, Sun, and Moon dance in consistent, orbital eccentricities on the daily. There is something somatic about this rhythm and rhyme that is deeply comforting to me. An undercurrent of stability, something to count on. I look to these rhythms in order to mimic the intelligence that I see within them. Consistency of a day. Showing up for yourself in the simple ways, working in collaboration, in cooperation with all that is.
One of the first major perspective shifts I experienced and subsequently fell in love with, was the ancient Irish expression of The Wheel of the Year. The year as a wheel; always turning, revolving, evolving and coming back again. The only consistent movement in life is change and therein lie the paradox of it all. Coming back around again and again to the same points in a season for a pause, for reflection, allow meaning, tradition, and ritual to grow spontaneously.
Over the years I have found incredible solace in the Wheel of the Year and the markers of celebration throughout. I can count on dry heat of late summer, the slow-to-cool nights of harvest and fall time bonfires and sweatshirts. Chilly nights and first frosts of almost winter. Calling the dead, honoring our ancestors and all they gave us. The airy hints of the furnace for the first time, bone broth simmering, day long soups and stews. Shoveling the quiet flakes of snow and admiring ice formations on car windows. Winter melting into spring bulbs pushing their way up and out of what seems to us as still frozen Earth, calling the sleepy pollinators to duty. The moisture of spring making way for the fertility of life bounding forth from Earth yearning deeply and continuously for the sky, to the heavens of warm light that filter through the breeze, the clouds, the trees. The orchestra pit of spring bursting into the full expression of bloom and form bringing summertime swimming holes, field frolicking and foraging to us from below our running feet. The gardens ushering us directly to our knees in awe of the fruit of our labors. The slowness then arrives, light withdrawing from view before we can catch it and before we know it, the cool comes as if to sneak up on us once again.
Today, August 1 is Lughnasad, an old Irish celebration of the beginning of the harvest and First Fruit. A time of merriment and gratitude for where the work has brought us so far. A time to appreciate all the fruit that is set before us and also to acknowledge that the days are once again beckoning the darkness to reign. The days will grow the darkness now until December 21, the Winter Solstice, and the Earth's queue to begin growing the light once again.
*Notes: The first time I encountered this philosophy was in a book I got while working at Whole Foods Market, sometime between 2005-2008. It's called A Druid’s Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year by Ellen Evert Hopman
It's a great beginner's guide and I still reference this book to this day!
