The Wisdom of Seasonal Cycles – Inner and Outer
By Kevin Murray
- Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
It is fall in New England; the later part of fall when the leaves are almost all down. My dog Zachary likes to take me for long walks in the woods. I comply. I love to watch the seasons come and go. There’s a little bit of winter already in this part of fall, just as there is always some of what’s been and some of what’s coming in the present moment.
During our hike the other day I felt 2 layers of ideas fall together and overlap. It landed in a moment, like a flash. One familiar layer is the 4 seasons. The newer layer is based on a pattern I’m noticing in a spiritual awakening path. The newer pattern is that we go through 4 stages of spiritual growth, and like the seasons, they keep coming back around. It is not linear. It is cyclical. We don’t complete the path. We go through with an increasing level of awareness, and then, just when we think we’re done, it’s time to go through another cycle, another season of spiritual growth.
The 4 Steps I refer to are Curiosity, Inquiry, Practice and Mastery.
At some point along the way of our lives, we have something or things that piqued our curiosity. Something that opened up our eyes and hearts a little. It may have been a book, a movie, a teacher, a moment in nature. We may not have known in that moment that Spirit was knocking on our door, but that’s what it was. Or rather, our soul was trying to get our attention. Curiosity is awakened. So this is the starting point for anyone. For without Curiosity, why bother opening to anything new? And without anything new, what would ever change? So there is a desire inside each of us, and it takes a moment or many moments to come out through an invitation borne of Curiosity. Maybe it takes years before we act on it, but the first step is Curiosity.
What I saw in my walk with Zachary, was that Curiosity is like the Winter and could be represented by the seed. The seed rests quietly in the ground in the Winter, but inside is all the information required for the full nature of the thing to manifest fully as what it is. Just as in us, we have everything we need already to recognize ourselves as creators; to fully manifest our lives in our unique expression of who we are.
The second step is Inquiry. By this I mean a deeper inquiry into the force behind the Curiosity. Which is to say, the forces in our lives; Mind, Spirit, Body and Soul, Creator, Love. Inquiry involves a more active role for us. Curiosity may have us sitting on the sidelines, but at the level of Inquiry, we are simultaneously on the playing field. At some point the seed begins to move in the ground, signaled by warming in the Spring. The wisdom inside is inspired to action and new form. Curiosity is awakened into Inquiry and the journey into Self has begun. Or the journey has begun again with whatever new awareness we gained from our last time around the cycle of seasons.
Curiosity awakens into Inquiry. This type of inquiry is deeper than an idle wondering about the nature of things, God, the universe, etc. This inquiry is into the nature of our minds, our beliefs, our patterns of behavior and language. At this level, we put our attention on witnessing the mind from an observer point-of-view . And of course, there are still many times where Mind is the dominant player, when we are not witnessing how the mind judges, opines, and otherwise pulls us through a day. We can be pulled through the mind’s dominance when we are so completely identified with the Mind that we think it is who we are. The good news is that this Inquiry also brings the grace of moments where we can see the mind operating, and that simple vision confirms the suspicion begun in Curiosity: I am more than my mind. There’s more to life than this!
These moments of grace are like the new leaves, shoots and buds of spring. Something is unfolding, something is happening. We see evidence of shift, but the larger manifestation is not completely apparent. Inquiry models this energy of Spring. There are moments where we can see our mind more clearly, and therefore have a capacity for new choice, sometimes we are back to mind-dominance and we don’t have a choice. Similarly, not every seed will fully emerge. If the sun or the dirt or the water isn’t right, the growth will stop and the plant dies.
Two qualities of the Summer season are discipline and commitment. In our relationship with nature, this is a time for working the fields, long sun-filled days. It’s the time to do what needs to be done so that the harvest will be good in the fall. Without the discipline and commitment to tending the garden, the harvest will be less. The third step of spiritual awakening corresponding to this is Practice. As my prosperity teacher says “We know what to do and we do it.” Our practice is whatever it is: meditation, mindfulness, contemplation, prayer, journalling, anything that supports and deepens our time with our essential selves. We may often still be filled with curiosity. We may still be inquiring into our true nature. These pieces do not follow each other. They are always present. One or another may be getting more of our attention. Just as the seasons overlap, sometimes there is a little reminder of summer even in the winter, with a little warmth and sun, so do these qualities of a spiritual path overlap.
The next step, not the last, is Mastery. Mastery is when we flow with life. There is no suffering. There is light and love and laughter. We manifest easily. We move with grace and ease. We are in service. This relates to the Autumn season. In the fall, there is abundance of the harvest. We reap what we have been busy planting, weeding and nurturing. This is a time to give of what we have received, just as the harvest gives its life to feed us. Just when we are at a place of Mastery, that is the perfect time to let go of whatever it is that we say we have mastered.
When a pumpkin is at it’s fullest expression, just then is it time to disintegrate to allow the seed to go into the ground for the next cycle to begin. So too for the Master. When our mastery is at it’s fullest, the parts of it that we become attached to, the parts of it that have become ’set’ in the mind, those parts we can let go. We let them go knowing that whatever we will need will be provided. Whatever we’ve always needed has always been provided. Mastery is empowered by this type of humility and allows us to plant the seed for the next part of the journey back into the winter of our curiosity and on from there.
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