AS WE MOVE TOWARD THE DARKER MONTHS: A COSMOLOGY OF NOURISHMENT AND ALCHEMY
Friday August 15th
9:00-10:15 MDT on ZOOM
$20
**will be recorded and available for 1 week
This is the first of 3 workshops for the transition from Summer to Fall. This time will storytell the shape of this change through the lens of Chinese 5 Element Theory and the Celtic calendar, and include a short qigong practice of a single form. This class is a great intro into the cosmology and conversation. To go deeper, join Sarah for the AUTUMN INSIDE workshop and the RETURNING HOME TO SOUL series later in August.
As we move toward the darker months, the Yin side of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, our response to this transition are many and varied. For some this turn inward brings a sigh of delicious relief and sustenance…for others, dread, fear, depression and grief.
As we move toward the Yin side of the year, we have a chance to drink in the deep nourishment of the alchemical process that awaits us in the months ahead.
This 75 minute class will be trust-building teaching-framed in the life-giving cosmology of Daoism and Chinese 5 Elements, and a heartfelt invitation into the great tide of this change. Sarah will reserve the last few minutes of class to share a single and powerful qigong form that can offer deep medicine for this time. Join Sarah for this class that will help you build trust and understanding as we move into the darker months of the year.
Arguably the most difficult transition for Western people, we have become displaced from our trust in the cycles of decline, dissolution and letting go. The way we attend our time between Summer and Fall, in both inner and outer nature, will determine our Winter ahead- will it be filled with depression, isolation and loneliness, or will Winter have its chance to be the deep nourishment, incubation, and pulsing quiet that it holds and we need? Our transition from Summer to Fall traces our relationship through the topography of letting go, accountability to the past (near and distant), allowance of grief, discernment, turning inward, returning to the Earth, and gathering the courage for these brave walks.
Autumn is a time for letting go. Archetypally, it’s metallic expression is both the wing (Yin) and the sword (Yang). It is a time for drawing energy from the external toward the internal, from extremities to center. It is a powerful and long passage and it is the transitional season between Summer and Winter. Most of us do some version of a face-plant into Winter, straight from the overextension, busyness and exhaustion of Summer (which is not true Summer) and of our western culture, skipping over the exquisite beauty and necessity of Fall inside of ourselves-which is a willingness to let go, to honor all that has come to pass, begin our turn inward. It is in the cycle of Fall that we return from the adventures and expressions of the Spirit (Sumer) back toward the more inward homeplace of the Soul. This draw back toward center and Earth cultivates a profound and necessary discernment- the metallic archetype of the sword- that can cut away, cut through, separate this from that, remove excess, refine and clarify. And the more Yin expression of the wing- a sublime kind of beauty and capacity that traverses between worlds- that is the threshold place between inside and out.
In Chinese Medicine, this passage takes place in the organ system of the Lungs and Large Intestine- the Metal Element. When we do not tend the lungs and the Metal element before we go into Winter, the low wet clouds of fullness and grief set in and stagnate, thus creating a physical and psychological situation in which we literally incubate repression, suffocation and stagnation in our bodies and minds.
It is difficult to turn inward if we are terrified of what we might find there, or if we have no map or support to let the green leaves of our lives turn their most magnificent colors yet and fall back to the earth, to admit that all we have been given will be given back and that this cycle is necessary, and constantly asking for its due. We can spend a significant amount of energy resisting this, using most of our daily energy trying to keep nature’s cycles from cycling in us or thinking something is terribly wrong when we are being claimed by these intelligent rhythms.
We are a part of a great wheel of cycles. When we return to harmony with these rhythms, our whole lives begin to true to the tune of a greater intelligence and coherence.
I have come to learn that many people harbor a secret dread of Winter, and that dread can begin to tremble now…as Fall lands upon us. Though often a welcomed turn and relief, Autumn can also bring an impending fear of darkness, of seasonal depression, of the fallow field-an inability to turn inward in a nourishing way, in a culture that demands constant productivity at all costs.
One of the reasons Winter can be daunting for us is because we end up incubating suffocation rather than incubating the quiet, peace and stillness that is available to us and is central to our health and nourishment, both on a physical and soul level.
Autumn is a time for letting go. For drawing energy from the external to the internal. It is a powerful and long passage. Most of us do some version of a face-plant into Winter, straight from the overextension, busyness and exhaustion of Summer and of our western culture, skipping over the exquisite beauty and necessity of Fall inside of ourselves-which is a willingness to let go, to honor and grieve all that has come and gone, to begin our turn inward. It is difficult to turn inward if we are terrified of what we might find there, or if we have no map or support to truly let go, to let the leaves of our lives fall to the earth, to admit that all we have been given will be given back and that this part of the cycle is necessary, and constantly asking for its due. We can spend a whole life resisting this, using most of our daily energy trying to keep nature’s cycles from cycling in us.
Many people spend Winter trying to skip it altogether-simultaneously clinging to the Summer that has passed, while jumping ahead to a Spring that is not yet here, nor even possible without a true Winter. This creates anxiety, depression, a pervasive fear of stillness, an inability to rest or to pause and an exhaustion that can never seem to get its feet under itself. Winter is nature’s long and incubating pause. We all need a Winter. And before Winter, we need a Fall.