Is it time to reclaim your time?

Remember how your schedule used to feel?

Even if we were working way too hard, the week had a routine to it, and weekends meant a break.

Now, between the internet and COVID, every day can slip into some kind of perpetual slog. There’s always another should right there waiting, haunting what used to be called free time.

Without the usual outer-induced structure it’s easy to float along distracted by pings and posts, feeling insubstantial, ungrounded, overwhelmed with an endless stream of stuff to do.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize during this ever-so-odd year.

Humans need routine. Structures hold our inventiveness. Rituals cradle our intentional potential. Too stiff a structure and we feel hemmed in. Too loose a framework and we lose our way.

When I was out and about every day, my calendar gave me the variety I loved and the structure I needed. It gave my days — and life — a feeling of equilibrium and flow. But this past year, without the usual balance of spontaneity and rhythm.

I needed something to hold my life, or organize the passing of time. Something I could lean into to feel held and connected amid the timelessness.

So last June I decided to observe the Summer Solstice. 

I spent most of the day outside, and built a fire that evening to mark the day.

Very simple. 

Then, as each season approached, I began to invite others to join me. And here’s what I noticed:

When I made it a point to notice and observe the season’s turnings throughout the year I’ve felt more grounded to the fact of my interdependence with all that is, more reflective and purposeful to the evolution of my personal life, and more awake to the wonder of being alive. 

So this is now part of my life and it can be part of yours too if you wish to join me for my 8 Women’s Year Retreat Days each year.

With schedules still so asque and the usual gatherings impossible, maybe you, too, could use something that feels solid –

A time to tether you to what is real around you, beyond the daily dramas. 

A time to remember how deeply the natural world holds you.

A space for feeling your connection to the Earth and her beauty and wisdom.

You might give yourself the gift of rising next Sunday morning to catch the sunrise.

Schedule some time outside now (thank you, structure) to stop and be wowed by the first snowdrops.

Be curious. 

What else is there to notice?

Watch how your body responds when you’re still for a few moments, when you let yourself really sense the natural world instead of just observing it. As I’ve done for nearly a year now, I’ll be finding creative ways to mark these changes of the seasons this Sunday.

Observing the balance of day and night that is the equinox deepens my connection and trust in the balancing cycles of my life and this beneficent world where I’m beyond-belief blessed to live.

Whatever you do this coming Sunday I invite you to make time to notice and connect to the Earth.

Receive her beauty.

Breathe in her spring scent.

Catch the morning chorus of birdsong right outside your door.

Or let a pussywillow’s soft touch brush your face.

You are One with this world, Dear Ones.

Imbibe.

Feel.

Taste.

Lap up the sap

Rising in her and in you!

Happy almost Spring!!

With so much love,