Daffodils Come Spring
After graduating high school, I went off to Great Britain for a year to work and see a bit of the world. Having grown up in the states, when we cross a street, we look to the left, reflexively. On more than one occasion, I was looking left when, with horns blaring, motorists would be swerving around me. Humanity is looking left. Why are our leaders focused on creating legislation to restrict civil liberties while, climate scientists are saying this is a “do or die” decade for Earth? They are looking left, as the semitruck of global warming is barreling down from the right. It is madness, gaslighting, infuriating! But, what can we do?
I find that before my nervous system can calm down, I have to expand my awareness out to a large and long view of things. When I focus too tightly on the details of the human and ecological tragedies that are unfolding daily as a result of our insatiable consumption and thirst for power, I get anxious and angry. It all seems so unnecessary. When I have the energy of anxiety and anger in my Heart, I am unavailable to Life and to be part of something new. The anger and anxiety take me out of correct relationship with the normal, functional movement of Life and I am unavailable to the energy of Spring to be part of a new story, a new era in human consciousness.
Our beautiful and generous Mother Earth is estimated to be 4,530,000,000 years old. Human beings have only been around 160,000 years or so, representing barely a speck of dirt on Mount Everest. In that time, each era of human civilization has had its successes and failures in terms of creating something that can be built upon in subsequent stages of the evolution of the Earth. The evolution of the Earth as a living being is reflected in human consciousness, and brings in a new era, new ways of thinking about life… new ways of expression in the arts and culture as well as new technologies. Humanity and all the Earth’s beings evolve together. We are tied to the evolution of planet.
For most of human history, people understood our connection and relationship to the Earth in a way that, for example, we know the sky is blue, leaves are green, the sun rises and sets every day, they just are. This knowing was a lived expression in daily life, recognized and honored with rituals, songs, and stories about humanity’s relationship to and love for the sacred Mother Earth as the provider of all of life. The stories and rituals provided the pathway between the material world and the energetic world. It is relatively recent delusion of human consciousness that we are independent of and have dominion over our Mother Earth, that we can treat her as a resource to be exploited. Woven into the fabric our culture is the concept that if our scientists don’t understand something or aren’t aware enough to ask the questions, then it doesn’t exist. Scientific discoveries are made every day. We have this funny idea that if something hasn’t been scientifically “discovered” then it isn’t part of the universe. If that were true, we would have run out of discoveries a long time ago. So we can know for sure that there is a lot we don’t understand about how the world works and don’t even have the inkling of not knowing that would prompt the right questions to lead to more discovery. Effectively, what we don’t know at this point in our evolution or have yet to discover, doesn’t exist. This delusional arrogance, this forgetting that our planet is a wonderous living being, this amputation of the sacred and unseen world because we don’t understand it, is the root of global warming and the countless, devastatingly-shortsighted decisions made by powerful men that will take generations to recover from. If recovery is even possible at this point.
With humanity wallowing in this delusional amnesia, how can we as individuals make even an iota of difference? Human consciousness is a very powerful example of the unseen world. No one can see your thoughts and emotions and yet you experience them every day, 24/7. Even at night you are dreaming. By focusing our awareness, by seeking connection, by humbly and with a willingness to learn a new way of being, we can begin to reestablish correct relationship to our Mother.
As descendants of European ancestors and colonizers of the land we now inhabit, we don’t have a clue how to even begin to do that. Taoist understanding of the energetic cycle of the seasons provides a way in. It is simply one of an infinite number of ways that human civilizations have been in relationship to the energetic world over the past 160,000 years. As a practitioner and student of East Asian healing arts, I have a basic understanding that I can share.
This year, from 11:33 p.m. on April 25th to 5:13 p.m. on May 16th (Maine time) we will be in the Earth phase. The Earth phase is the transition between seasons. As you can see in the diagram, each season is active 36½ days on either side of the Equinox or Solstice, and the Earth phase is the transition time between them. The exact length of the Earth phase varies, where the seasons do not. Looking at the seasons this way, we don’t have to worry about Leap Year.
The energetic of the Earth phase is active all the time and holds the energy of the center. Imagine that the yellow slices on the diagram are really windows allowing you to see that the yellow Earth phase lies as a constant behind all the other phases, a complete circle upon which the seasons cycle. It is just most visible in the transitions.
The Earth phase is responsible for the digestive organs of the stomach and spleen/pancreas, and therefore is the basis of how we nourish ourselves—body, mind and spirit. It is the way we take in the outer world, process and transform it into ourselves, be it a nourishing meal (body), a good book (mind), or a walk with a loved one (spirit). The time between each season gives us the opportunity to rest and regather ourselves for the coming seasonal energetic. It is an invitation to pause and regain your center, to re-establish a balanced approach to what you are consuming on all levels that is in alignment with the coming season. The way we go about getting ready for winter is very different from the way we go about getting ready for summer. It is like slack tide, with the boats in the harbor pointing every which way before they all swing into alignment with the distinct movement of the tide. In this case, a summer tide.
As a way to connect to the energetic of the Earth phase, and therefore the Earth herself, I invite you to take 15 minutes a day, maybe as part of your morning ritual, to write down whatever is running through your mind. Write as if no one will read it, burn it when your done if you want. Write it as note to Mother Earth, as an offering. Tell her your troubles, the things that have you stuck and ruminating (indigestion of the mind). It will help you process your thoughts and emotions and it will connect you to the Earth in the same way that sharing your troubles with a good friend is an offering to intimacy that deepens the connection.
As we begin to align and connect with the seasonal phases, we bring conscious awareness to our place in the world, our place in Indra’s net. It is this conscious awareness that is a little seed of light that you will be planting for that time in the future when the spring of a new era arrives. I can’t say when or how, but I’m confident that it will, because that’s the nature of Life. Just like planting bulbs in the fall assures me that daffodils will bloom come spring.
Photo by Михаил Павленко