🕸Embracing Cyclical Living
My personal interpretation & I use it as a lifestyle for Healing & Purpose
In this week’s letter, you’ll learn about…
✍️ Embracing Cyclical Living for Healing & Purpose
🖋️ Cyclical Living Journaling Prompts to get started
📝 A free gift: Cyclical Living Journal Page
📖 Embracing Cyclical Living
I want to start by saying I’m not a scientist, biologist, or physicist expert in any way, so I won’t be explaining using any science jargon in this letter. However, I do know a thing or two about cyclical living as I’ve been interested in nature, the spiritual, magical life, and the metaphysical - to name a few - my entire life.
I’ve studied to be a Natural Health Counselor, trained to be a Priestess, followed many courses here and there, and read countless books and as I went through a life-threatening journey I can say this: Everything in life comes down to Cyclical Living.
If you go and search Cyclical Living you’ll most likely find results talking about your period/menstruation cycle. This is because we’re used to calling our menstruation just “our (feminine) cycle” but the menstruation cycle is just one of the cycles of cyclical living.
Moreover, I don’t want to over-complicate things, so in this letter, I’ll do my best to compact the information in the simplest yet useful way. Still, this is an extremely wide holistic lifestyle which I’ll be delving into here in the newsletters so, if you’re interested in this subject I’ll recommend you to subscribe to this newsletter.
With that said, let’s dive in…
🕸 Cyclical Living as the Wheel of Life
Like everything in nature, we used to live cyclically too. Instinctively, we used to know when to hunt, gather food, when to rest, and later how and when to farm to grow vegetables for example.
We used to observe…observe nature, and observe ourselves. This knowing came from our bodies.
This is how many civilizations created medicine wheels like the Native American Wheel, The Wheel of the Year, The Greek Medicine Wheel, and The Chinese Medicine Wheel, just to name a few. These wheels contained all life’s processes and how everything evolved from a small seed, birthing, growing, shedding, dying, and re-birthing.
They saw and understood that evolution came from never-ending cycles, like spirals that go in circles but never come back to the same (starting) point but of course always offering (kind of) the same processes over and over again.
But along the way, we stopped living cyclically and started to see everything in a linear manner. As our brains and intellect developed, we became over-linear thinkers and welcomed linear living.
Linear living is not natural and does not offer evolutionary opportunities. Instead, this way of living took one part of the Wheel and demanded to continuously strive for growth and try to evolve in this part only.
You might think know: What the heck are you talking about?
I created my own interpretation of the Wheel of Life. Just take a look at the image below.
Here you see, besides a wheel, many elements*.
*I didn’t want to overflow this illustration so I only added what I feel is essential for getting started with cyclical living.
To make it as simple as possible: Life moves through the wheel passing all the seasons and phases. This is the natural flow. In modern life we are stuck in one season; the season of striving, conquering, manifesting, the prime of life = Summer Season.
Each season is ‘ruled’ by an element and in this case Summer Season is ruled by the Fire element. The danger of fire is that when we are stuck in Summer Season, is that we might get burned…or as it’s called nowadays: burn-out.
For all human beings staying in this season can be devastating. Above all, we women, suffer the biggest consequences in this entire ordeal. Why? Because we fluctuate more densely than men due to our hormones.
So, the healthiest way for us to live or flow in this life is to journey with nature’s cycle. Why? Because we then align ourselves to our natural rhythms and nature again.
It’s important to mention that even though we all move with nature’s cycles collectively, we do this in our own unique way. Finding these rhythms and patterns is like discovering our sweet spot, from which we can create unique formula.
Yet again, this formula isn’t static either; it moves, it flows, and it evolves because you - and your rhythms - evolve on the journey as well, so it’s natural for this formula to gradually change as well. Moreover, this formula does not only change with progress and evolution but it also forms/morphs depending on the current cycles as well.
Nature’s cycles involve a lot of cycles. For this reason, I created a journal page with my favorite cycles and the cycles that I feel are best to attune when desiring to live a more intentional and cyclical life.
Do you want to get this journal page? Just scroll down below for more information.
🕸 Where I started & now
In a nutshell:
My biggest frustration and irritation in life in general was that always struggled with my energy levels. Like many, I grew up in a society where being ‘on’ and constantly productive was - and still is - the norm. Even as a teenager, I suffered from a constant lack of energy. As a result, I couldn’t function well and got tested several times for many diseases including Mono and anemia. But my tests always came back clear, so it was all in my head apparently...
That was just the tip of the iceberg, and as I became older I started to notice I was suffering from burn-out episodes ( plus many other issues) and I started to deeply feel the way I was living was not right. That’s how I slowly became more in touch - or better said more active - with the spiritual side of life and with nature.
Still, I was struggling with how to live in this cyclical way while still living in a culture with demanded from me my entire time and devotion just to pay the bills. Because let’s be honest, if you’re struggling with energy - the lack of it - and don’t have a major savings account or come from a wealthy family, you’re not going to be able to “live” in this capitalist system.
I realized that I wasn’t living…I was surviving. In fact, I knew what I wanted, and I knew how I wanted to live, yet I couldn’t see - let alone create - the bridge between my dream life and my reality. I felt stuck… I felt stuck for a very long time.
And then in my desperation, I got sick.
🕸 Healing & Purpose
The illness was a major wake-up call and I knew that I might possibly still have a chance, but only if I started to shift things around. To shift me around.
All my interests, all my passions, and many more things came to me and said:
“Now is the time to live your life the way you want to live”
And here & right now I’m doing my fricking best to live authentically and cyclically, because I believe from the bottom of my heart that cyclical living is the answer to healing, for finding my mission and living purposefully.
And it all starts by…
… becoming aware
🕸 Laying the Foundation
My tip on becoming aware of yourself and your rhythms is to start to observe:
Your inner nature: noting the way you show up each day on a holistic level
Your outer nature: noting what is happening around you in nature as well as your spaces and your relationships.
Because this can be a long process and we want to keep it as simple as possible I’d recommend to…
Choose one or two cycles to flow with on a daily basis.
Go for a (small) walk every day and if you can’t do this then observe nature from your window.
Write everything you noticed each day in a journal
I’d recommend starting with the seasons and the moon. But feel free to choose whatever cycle calls to you without being overwhelmed!
You can search online for seasonal calendars which tell you the seasonal dates for each year and do the same for Moon calendars.
My favorite website to do this is astro-seek.com.
There you’ll find all the dates and information regarding the moon, and the seasons and you can even draw your horoscope chart and much more.
You don’t have to write pages and pages every day - but you’re free to do so! If time is lacking or you don’t like writing too long, then just write keywords about how you felt that day in regard to yourself and your surroundings.
As you journal, add each day on top of the page - besides the date & day of the week - the season, the moon phase, and the moon zodiac sign for that specific day. For now, don’t worry too much about how the moon cycle, her phases, and her signs work. The important thing is YOU and becoming aware of your own nature. Later, we’ll dive deeper into the moon’s specifics.
If you want to know a little about Autumn season, you can read last week's letter about Autumn’s Energetics. As we approach a new season, I’ll write a letter about it.
At the end of the moon cycle (Waning Crescent Moon) and at the end of the season I’d recommend reviewing what you have written so far and hopefully, you’ll start noticing patterns.
What we can do with these findings, I’ll tell you in future letters, so stay tuned!
✍️ Cyclical Living Journaling Prompts
For your inner nature:
How was my energy level throughout the day?
How did I feel mentally/emotionally, physically, and spiritually?
What did I need today?
For your outer nature:
How did I feel in regard to my relationships? With the world today?
How did I feel in the spaces I was in today?
Did something happen today?
Do you think you can do this each day? Why? or Why not? Feel free to share your answer and reflections in the comments:
📝 Cyclical Living Journaling Page
If you love journaling, specifically intentional journaling, please grab this free printable journal page!
By subscribing to Your WeatherVane newsletters you’ll get access details in your welcome email. Also, whenever you get your weekly letter you’ll see the access link in the email header. This information isn’t visible elsewhere on Substack; you won’t have access just by reading the letters online. That’s why subscribing is recommended.
💫 WeatherVane’s Flow
Last week, we went away for the first time in years! We went to the first Island in The Netherlands, Texel, because after three years, after the pandemic, after diagnosis & treatments, and after the stress + ordeal of this past Summer, we needed to get out. So after finding a great offer, and having the possibility to go in the best economic way, we took the car and went.
It was amazing to get away, out in nature and at the sea, and we were super lucky to have the last week of Summer weatherwise; I even went into the ocean for a swim!
This time away was not only amazing just unplugging and recharging the batteries, but also made me realize a few things: how much of a sea girl I am and how much I missed the ocean + beach but also I’m just noticing the impact of having gone through cancer treatment. After one year of finishing active treatment, the trauma of it all is just sinking in.
I’m just scratching the surface but what I’ve noticed just now is how I went from knowing what I wanted and making easy + fast decisions to barely daring to dream. I know and feel in my heart that by diving into Cyclical Living I’ll be able to recuperate myself. Cancer did not take my identity away; I lost it piece by piece while growing up.
In last week’s letter, I talked about decluttering, and the first thing I did the next day after getting back home - besides laundry - was to start decluttering & organizing my closet. During Spring, I started decluttering and even though I got bags of stuff to donate, I noticed how difficult I still find to let go of ‘things’. This made me realize that decluttering is not (a one-time) activity but an ever-evolving process, especially for those who are collectors and have accumulated many many many things over the years, including clothes.
The last thing on my mind was to do this the next day after coming back home, and even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t bear to look at that messy closet any longer. Nonetheless, I’m far from done with that closet, I’m glad I started it, and will be my goal for this week. Yes, the boxes in the attic are still closed waiting for me to open them, and I still have the intention to go through them. I just don’t know when yet…
📩 Upcoming Letter
✍️ Understanding Holism and its role in Cyclical Living
🖋️ Specific Holistic Journaling Prompts
📝 A free gift: a journal page for your notes
🌬️ Sending you magic & healing your way,
-Vane