The Wheel of the Year Turns
Moving towards the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year, we reach the pinnacle of the ancient wheel of time.
Depicted as an 8-spoked wheel, the Wheel of the Year has been used by humans for millennia to mark and observe the cyclical passing of time.
I personally love how this illustration allows for cycles to be nested within cycles. The turn of the zodiac signs in the skies above assisted ancient people in pinpointing the celestial events life was oriented to: solstices and equinoxes. Alerting humans to planting and migration times, these seasonal markers align us with the ebbs and flows of the natural world that sustains us. Within these cycles of dates, weather changes and astrological omens, are nested the moon cycles that move us incrementally through the weeks and usher us between seasons.
Tracking our world in this way undoubtedly gave us a heads up on survival. In our modern world, it provides a touchpoint to our own growth, our personal cycles of waxing and waning that can go unnoticed, uncelebrated and un-honored if we choose not to slow down.
A powerful writer and observer of time, Margaret Rosenau of the School of Inner Health, recently produced and published a set of cards with excerpts from her teaching and writing.
This card jumped out at me, the word “revolution” transformed into a double entendre, a potent spell(ing) to imbue the year ahead.
A revolution is a repetition, something that returns after being inaccessible – for years or generations – to change things up, to realign individuals or communities toward something we may be ignoring or forgetting.
MARGARET ROSENAU
A revolution: an uprising, a social movement, a moment in time we can look back on and recognize, “Yes, that is when it all changed!”
A revolution: a full rotation of a wheel.
The turning of a wheel, the Wheel of the Year or the wheel of your own life, the revolution/repetition of a cycle in our culture, generational or family dynamics: each is an opportunity for recognizing a change coming. Perhaps it is an internal change coupled with an outward shift where we too can look can back on our personal growth and say, “Yes, that is when it all changed.”
The next revolution of the wheel of the year is a chance to “change things up, to realign… toward something we may be ignoring or forgetting.”
The change of seasons is a chance to re-recognize places we may want to live more fully, or fully let go. After all, part of the changing of seasons is the inevitable death of the growing season to make way for compost in turn for nurturing the next season of life.
Where in this season do you feel you may be ignoring or forgetting or needing to reassess?
Where in your life, experience, culture or family, do you feel that a revolution may be necessary?
And is it a revolution of throwing off the yoke of old belief in a dramatic and blazing way?
Or is the revolution of small things, the creeping realization of things growing as spring seeds, day by day in the dark?
If you are interested in more:
You can find more of Margaret’s work through her teaching and blog at the School of Inner Health. If you are interested in checking out the complete deck of cards, they are available in her online store.
