Earth Transitions Point to Personal Transformation
In this series of essays on the greater energetic movements that give rise to the seasons, I hope to offer perspectives and tools to help you find more resilience and joy amidst this turbulent time in history. The ancient Taoist Five Element lens offers us an understanding of the five energetic phases that are the basis of change and creation in the cosmos. By observing and understanding how Nature responds to the cycle of ever-changing energies over the course of a year, we gain insight into how these great forces are influencing our bodies, minds, and spirits. This knowing helps us work with these Great Movements in ways that support us and help us live more fully into our gifts and potential amidst the unraveling of human culture and ecosystems all around us.
The five energetic phases that give rise to Creation are all happening all the time. Birth, growth, decline/death, and rebirth are the basic building blocks of life here on Earth, and are all happening every day in infinite ways, on macro and micro scales. To help us grasp this mind-boggling understanding of the cosmos, we can observe how the five phases give rise to the seasons and pay attention to how we are responding physically, emotionally, and mentally. With practice, we can learn to recognize these energetic movements in our lives outside of the seasonal changes and how to work with them.
At this moment, we are entering the next Earth transition time. January 27th is the end of the Water Phase that gives rise to winter, and February 12th is the beginning of the Wood Phase that gives rise to spring. This time between winter and spring is the first Earth Phase of the year. The Earth Phase governs transitions. (For more on the Earth Phase, and supporting yourself in transitions, see the “Shoulder Seasons” blog here.)
In a human life, transitions happen all the time. Transitioning from one phase of your day to the next, for example. What is the morning routine that gets you from bed to the work of your day? This is a transitional time, the time between a resting phase (water) and a starting work phase (wood) if you look at the seasonal diagram like a 24-hour clock instead of a full year.
What interests me at this moment is the idea that transition is also the in-between stage in a transformation. In our 24-hour clock example, we undergo a transformation of a kind when we change states from deep sleep to fully awake. To the observer, you are almost two different creatures. It is more subtle than a caterpillar to butterfly (because your body doesn’t physically change form overnight), but each day you wake up a new person. The chrysalis stage—the time after the caterpillar and before the butterfly—is a transitional phase. We can say it is an Earth phase.
The central issues of the Earth phase are nourishment and transformation (See “Shoulder Seasons” button above). It is the Earth Phase that allows us to nourish ourselves and transform that nourishment into ourselves. This is obvious on the physical level, where the food you eat nourishes your body and your body’s genius transforms it into you. If we shared a piece of cake, my body would turn it into me specifically, and your body would turn that same cake into you. This is transformation. Cake to you. Of course, this happens at all levels of the body, mind, and spirit. We have all noticed how there are some types of food and drink that support us in feeling our best. These are the whole foods that your body recognizes and has evolved with. Whole foods are easily transformed by the human body, whereas “junk food,” not being actual food, is not. This is also true in terms of the company you keep, the books you read, the news you “consume,” the trips you take, as well as life’s inevitable difficulties. We are taking all of those things and transforming them into ourselves. Life as a whole has to be transformed into our life individually. Some days we have more or less capacity to process and transform than others. We can feel exhausted by difficult emotional situations because they are taxing on our systems of transformation just as eating poorly would be.
Pachamama, Posted by Goddess Garden 11/18
The Earth herself, as a living spiritual being, is also constantly transforming and evolving as part of her life. Historically, humanity understood and related to the Earth with gratitude, honor, respect, and care. She was known by various names—Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Pachamama, Tonantzin, Gaia, fertility goddesses, et al. Every culture knew her as the giver of life. In our current culture, we have forgotten that relationship. We have forgotten that we belong to the Earth, and not the other way around. Much of what humanity has been up to in the last few hundred years has overwhelmed her capacity to transform despite her best efforts. She is exhausted. We see it all around us in loss of ecosystems, species, and climate. She simply can no longer transform current human activity into Life. Something has to change. The Earth is showing us that we must evolve and transform along with her or perish, for how can humanity thrive when the Earth is dying? Because we are a global community, all 7.7 billion of us are invited to transform and evolve into a human culture that is part of a Thriving Life, an interconnected web on Earth.
The invitation, indeed, requirement, for humanity as a whole to transform and evolve is happening on a global scale. This translates to an invitation and requirement on an individual basis as well, because a society is the aggregate of all the people who live in it. We can make a conscious choice to take on personal transformation, or we will be dragged, individually and collectively, kicking and screaming. We are seeing a lot of kicking and screaming going on around us as old institutions crumble because the Earth is evolving and we aren’t keeping up. She is evolving just as she was when the Middle Ages evolved into the Renaissance. People tend to resist change. She does not.
Caterpillars cannot decide they’d rather not become a butterfly because they don’t want to go through the vulnerable and scary transition of being a bag of goo in the chrysalis stage. The caterpillar follows its original blueprint, its authentic nature, to go from a crawling creature to a magical flying one. It has no choice but to follow the blueprint. Transformation is like that. There are only two options: transform or perish.
As humans, we tend to resist change, because the unknown is scary, plus we won’t literally die if we refuse to do our personal transformational work. But in that refusal is the choice to not become the most beautiful butterfly version of ourselves. The potential of butterfly-ness dies, which is a loss for you as an individual and for the global community as we are short one butterfly. At this particular moment in human history and the Earth’s evolution, She needs the help of butterflies. (For more on our blueprints, see “Winter and the Deep Dive into The Water Phase” here).
Our soul or blueprint contains the butterfly potential in each of us. While caterpillars do not get confused about their soul’s mission to become a butterfly, humans do. We have to do some work and pay attention in order to see which way to turn at each intersection of our lives for the butterfly to emerge. We can consciously commit to that discovery through various practices that take us out of the linear, rational mind such as meditation, prayer, mindful breathing, making art, dancing, cooking with love, mindful time in Nature, gardening with attention, or tending an altar. These simple acts are actually ancient technologies that have been with humanity since the beginning of time. We may have forgotten how to be in relationship with the Earth, but those memories are stored in our “bones,” encoded in the DNA inherited from our ancestors who lived in harmony with the Earth. We can use these ancient methods to remember how to connect our souls with the Earth’s soul and the great web of Life.
The Earth Transition times of year can offer us hints about what our soul/blueprint is needing us to pay attention to on its way to manifesting our most authentic, butterflied selves. Just as Winter/Water Phase energy has us drawing in cozy by the fire, Transition/Earth Phase energy will resonate with the things in your life that are in transitions. The areas of our lives that need a little work to support our truest, most authentic butterfly nature. This can be anything. Relationships that need a little tending, work situations that aren’t quite fitting, living situations that need adjusting… You know what these things are because they keep coming around and bothering you like a pebble in your shoe. Sometimes they feel completely insurmountable, and they often are when approached from the rational, problem-solving mind.
This is where Earth Transition energy is helpful in moving these things forward. During Earth Transition times, they will resonate and feel like larger pebbles in your shoe. This is because the whole planet is transitioning from one seasonal energy to the next, and that global energy amplifies your individual transitions.
To begin, notice the things you are longing to be transformed in your life, the things that you notice feel more unsettled during the Earth/Transition phases. And then, let the Earth herself help you. She knows how to do this really well. Relax the grip of your rational, problem-solving mind and let yourself play in the symbolic realm because this is the language of the soul. Embrace practices that take us out of the rational and into sensory, quiet mind states. Taking our “problem” into meditation, prayer, walking meditation, mindful time in Nature, making art, music or dance, gardening with attention, cooking with love, or tending an altar, connects us with our blueprints. These are practices that build open lines of communication with the deepest aspects of ourselves.
As we cultivate these lines of communication with our blueprints, we notice that we feel less anxious and worried. The solution to the “problem” will likely be something we never imagined. Often, the solution ends up being an inner transformation, meaning that our point of view is transformed, making the material situation easier to live with. We will never be without difficulties, that simply is not the nature of a human life. We need the pebbles in our shoes to keep us pointed toward our soul’s mission for transformation. By taking on our personal transformational work, the wild ride of the next several decades of the Earth’s transformation to a Thriving Life ecosystem, will be easier for us to keep up with.
This little book by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee talks about how to connect with our blueprints while going about daily life.
From Amazon description:
Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life offers inspiring and practical guidance for reconnecting to the sacred in every day life and transforming our relationship with the Earth. Describing the power of simple, daily practices such as Walking, Gardening, Cooking with Love, and Prayer, this small book supports profound changes in how we think about and respond to the ecological crisis of our times.
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