Time is not the problem and neither are you - On Solstice, Saturn & Time

Is time an ally or an adversary? Is the calendar a crutch or a support?

I believe it’s all about relationality. What is your relationship to time? Is it the one most of us were taught - that it is linear, punative, unforgiving and limited? Or have you also been working to remember and reclaim that time and space are cyclical, expansive, multifaceted and non-linear/dual/binary?

I believe we can honor the supportive structure of human-recorded time and the modern/gregorian calendar, AND also honor the origins of where it all came from - a reflection of our Earth-bodies’ cycles around the sun & in witness of the moon.

To be fully with or without either is disorienting.

Yet when it is my choice, when I can, I follow my circadian cycles, not the colonial clock.

The original clocks are the sun that tells us the hours, the moon that tells us the days, and the seasons that tell us the phases of the years.

They have not left us - this instinctual knowledge may be buried but is not forgotten. Here’s to reclaiming…

These are the lessons of Saturn, ruled of Capricorn - our archetype of time and patterns and the rings of matter and reality.

These are also our lessons of the counterbalance sign that is Capricorn's equal of Cancer, the sign of the Moon; our teacher of phasic, cyclical living & being.

These are the ways of flow and form.

We strive to follow the flow of our bodies and the mirror in the sky, but also honor the way we must exist within the form of imperial time. If we only follow one or the other, we can easily be thrown off center. So we honor the change and congruence and diversion of the two and in-betweens too.

That’s why, when I get asked (or ask myself) why I still make Cycles Journal a dated, annual tool… I pause, I sometimes hesitate if I am uncentered, but then I always remember that it’s because of this very practice of being one with change.

"But wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if it was undated, wouldn’t I make more sales year-round if it were evergreen?" ...I ask as I lean on the moon phases, societal dates, and seasons to orient myself as an anchor in this reality.

"Why would anyone, including myself want to use this tool again after years of the same thing?" ...I question as if I or anyone can master the art and continual practice of Cyclical Mindfulness & embodied living within a year or even a lifetime?

"Wouldn’t an undated version put less pressure on us?"
Because this journal emulates and reflects the cycles of life - the moon does not wait to shift phases, the seasons and weather continue on whether we show up or not. So it makes sense that there are spaces, fluctuations. Rather than show up updated only when you can, this journal is the constant anchor for you to lean on, not conform to.

Cycles Journal is structured in the way nature and our modern world works - with dates and time existing and echoing the nature of continuation, simultaneously as the cycles of the earth/our bodies orbiting around the sun and moon through cycles of seasons and weather patterns... Teaching us that we can continue showing up, fluctuating and trying - beautifully imperfectly, as the world turns and this anchor of our body, this book, this Earth remains.

I created Cycles Journal to offer myself an anchor of grounding support in this ever-changing, fast paced world.

Cycles Journal serves to help me root into my own personal cycles of mental, menstrual and habitual wellbeing, and following of the inner and outer seasons and orbiting bodies. Cycles Journal connects me to both matter and spirit. Cycles Journal is a valued companion that is sitting nearby, patiently waiting no matter how many days I take away.

I continue to offer it to you, year to year, self-published out of my own pocket, heart and hands, and with the support of a beloved community, with the hopes it can continue or begin to be this for you too.

Here we can honor time not as a construct but as a way of orienting and resourcing into our intuitive and instinctual Cyclical Roots.