The idea of following the seasons in how we eat and how we live seems to be gaining a little traction in my circles.  Since today is the Fall Equinox, thinking about what it would mean to live with the Seasons seems appropriate.

I am new to looking at Seasonal meanings, so I went straight to the internet for some information.  According to The White Goddess (www.thewhitegoddess.co.uk), the name for this season is Mabon.  It comes in the middle of the harvest and is a day with the same amount of daylight and darkness.

I liked that.  I love the darker evenings of the fall and winter and am really irked that “they” made Daylight Savings Time so much longer.  The early darkness signals to me that we are to slow down and get ready for our night’s rest and have a bit more time for introspection.  When dusk doesn’t start until after 9:00PM I am not ready for bed until way too late!

Mabon, according to The White Goddess, is also about looking backward and forward and is a time of balance.

Bob has been painfully close to my heart and mind for the past couple of weeks — more than usual.  I wonder how related that is to the Season.  Other dates contribute to that sense of closeness.  September 15th marked 18 months since Bob moved on and October 2 would have been our 49th anniversary.  All of that is looking back — looking at all of the things that were good with Bob that can no longer be, looking at the huge hole his absence creates in my life.

Mabon also speaks of looking forward.  I see much joy in my life in the coming months and years.  I see the joy of being near my children and watching my grandchildren grow up.  Practicing and teaching Qigong classes has already been a joy and that joy will continue to grow.  Writing has become an important part of my life.  I have been seeking a creative outlet for a long time.  Teaching was my major creative outlet and I have not had that for several years now.  My creativity has languished.  With writing, that seems to be changing.

Where does the balance come into this picture?  I think that all of my life until now is the fodder for what will come.  Coming to Qigong with lots of aches and pains and some physical limitations gives my teaching a different tone — more meditative, less aggressive, more loving, less competitive, more adaptive, less perfect.  The pain and introspection from losing a spouse has certainly given me the opportunity to write authentically and that combined with the desire to have happiness has allowed me to create some characters I enjoy and who have a sense of reality about them simply because I have lived for 71 years.

As I see it, I can let the sorrow and unpleasantness of the past several months drown me, or I can use it as fertilizer to help me grow.  The balance seems to be in choosing to grow.

Trying to make these Seasonal changes fit into my life leaves an apparent problem.  After Mabon comes winter, the dark time when things appear to die.  I don’t want that and, more importantly, that is not how I am feeling now.  How does what I see fit into the progression of the seasons?  Both Writing and Qigong require a lot of internal and private work.  Perhaps the coming Season of more darkness than light will give me the quiet time to let my new roots grow strong.  Maybe I won’t have so many new and exciting ideas fighting for my attention.  Maybe the habits of practicing, reading, and writing will become strong over the winter so that come spring my roots will be strong and my idea pot will be full so that my writing and Qigong will flourish.

Enjoy this season.  Look back a little, look forward a little, find the balance.