Illness gifted me a bit of time by myself recently, and it struck me that rhythm is really the heart of health. Yet our modern lifestyle has us ignore many natural rhythms. Take electrical lighting, which has put us out of touch with an ancient sleep rhythm, one that may have had two sleep phases in boreal winter times – bridged by a meditative half-waking time. Obviously winter invites us to rest and celebrate – yet we’re as busy as always, if not more, consuming, filling our head with conventional x-mas duties that have lost touch with their original purpose.

Laying in bed, healing my bones, I slept a lot, laid awake at night, and pondered. I dreamed. And I came closer to my inner being, my insight, those ideas and motions that feel right, that remind me – quietly and patiently – which steps to take next and which ones to leave.

Maybe I keep doing this all winter. Maybe it’s what my body needs – after lifetimes of yanging through season after season: planning and making, then more planning and making. Maybe I gift myself full rhythms now, including the yin seasons: harvesting and dreaming. And give each season the equal amount of attention.

And maybe finally, I’ll live what the Conscious Cycle Kit nudged me to do since I created it in 2019. Four seasons, circling around a stylized Yin and Yang (see below poster for reference).

Yin seasons are receptive, passive, private, quiet, vague, slow, soft, introverted, regulatory: fall and winter.
Yang seasons are protective, vigorous, social, noisy, clear, fast, strong, extroverted, productive: spring and summer.

The whole wheel gives an overview of the four seasons moving through four domains. The seasons move clockwise around the wheel. The domains radiate out from the core: creativity, resilience, respect and courage. Each of the domains describe a holistic rhythm of life and its creative processes.

The wheel is as simple as it is complex. It’s so radically different from the way our schooling and economies tell us to do things. It’s so out of the box for our habitual brains that we may easily miss how basic this rhythm is to our being. And we keep missing two out of four beats. No wonder we see so much burnout and illness.

I’m at the end of my thought for today. If you read this and feel inspired to learn more, find more downloads on our website, follow us on insta or join our group for monthly calls.