When I created this Art of Alchemy substack, I made the commitment to publish a post a minimum of monthly. This marks my first post since May 7th. It has been nearly 3 months since then. I have many posts I started and did not finish. Ones that inspired me. Ones that I was not ready quite ready to publish. They feel like little seeds I have been planting which will hopefully bloom into life one day.
I want to consciously acknowledge this space and time period during which I have not published anything. Because it is notable for me. There is a stretch of time between May 5th and July 10th that is a string of big moments and markers - my wedding anniversary, mother’s day, the ending of the school year, father’s day, summer solstice, Andres’ birthday, the anniversary of his death, and my son Gabriel’s birthday.
This is the second time I have navigated the landscape of this window. This time around, the permanence and finality of his death and what it means to navigate life without my life partner feels more real and unchanging. Life is continuing its steady flow, rhythms and cycles.
These past 2 years since Andres died, this timespan of these summer months is what I think about, try to prepare for, dread at times, am relieved when it is over as I start to anticipate next year. How do I feel and honor my grief and make space for my son to feel and honor his grief? To hold space for both of our bodies to remember the loss, to heal? To attune and find the right balance of work and daily routine, rest, solitude, play time, time with our people? That coupled with the added mental load of managing all of the moving parts of our lives while in the thick of of this window of time.
My creative fire has been used in so many important, and yet unspoken and unseen ways in these past 3 months.
This window spans the summer season. In the Daoist cycle, as in many traditional systems, summer begins on the cross quarter day that happens around May 5th. I know it as the time period when the peonies bloom. Peonies were the flower, the only flower, at mine and Andres’ wedding. My favorite flower, the root of which is an essential herb used in Chinese medicine to preserve the quiet still spaces within us and our ability to soften and receive.
Summer represents the fire element in the phases or cycles of Chinese medicine. A heightened time of expansive energy in the outer world. The fire element corresponds to the heart, the emperor/empress, a multidimensional inner space that holds the magnitude of Divine order in the midst of the immense polarities we encounter in life. The capacity for joy and inner peace.
The peak of summer is the solstice, usually on June 20th or 21st. This is the day when the days start to shorten and we start the descent down to the Winter Solstice on December 20th or 21st. We are now fast approaching the cross quarter date of August 6th that marks the beginning of Fall. Fall is the metal element corresponding to the lungs and representing the moment in the creation cycle of appreciation for all that has gone before, dissolving and transforming into the present moment and the walk into the uncertainty of the unknown of the water element, and the shortest day of the year.
Andres and I always marked every cross quarter, solstice and equinox together with a ritual and a meditation. I am learning how these cycles and rhythms feel, figuring out these new rhythms in this unexpected life. In this new cycle, I commit to a discipline of joy, of noticing, moving toward, and saying yes to the moments, both quiet and loud, of joy and peace.
I bow to and honor any of you reading this who are measuring out your own windows in time of loss and transformation. Thank you for joining me here. I look forward to the next time.