Navigating Life’s Changing Seasons – Transformation, Rebirth, and Beyond
Fall has finally arrived in Tucson. It’s in the 40s when I walk Reggie at sunrise and the highs are between 58-70. My body is really enjoying the freedom from 100+ degree days and 80+ degree nights. Leaves are turning yellow on the few cottonwood trees in the wash, the goldfinches are stocking up on suet and seed and the hummingbirds on sugar water to keep warm on these chilly winter nights. I feel more inspired, more physically active, and generally not as hot-headed.
The season of my life is changing, too. Jacob and I are settling into life in two households. We are living apart together – across the street from each other, still in partnership. I am enjoying a sense of freedom that I haven’t felt in years. I’m finding my own eating, sleeping, dog walking, and spending rhythms that meet my own physical and emotional body’s needs. It’s truly lovely and has been a boon for our relationship as he does the same.
But the 9 month process was not without its challenges (yes, 9 months to gestate and birth this new life. Sound familiar?). Upending our life, describing why I needed this change, following through on it even when I saw how confusing and painful it was for him was a courageous act. It took a team of friends, healers, therapists, and coaches to take a stand, help me process my own feelings, and be present to him.
And now, a new season is dawning for our country. I don’t have much to say about the Republican sweep of the presidency, senate, and house. I’m not a fan, but I’m not surprised or wrecked either. Countries have seasons, too. The US has been deeply divided since its birth (slavery, colonization, patriarchy, socioeconomic status, etc.). Our ancestors have moved through seasons as they, and now we, attempt to resolve the injustices that plague us. The colonization of the indigenous people, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights period of the 60s which included assassinations and lynchings. These days it feels like a street fight often triggered by violence against marginalized and oppressed populations. And yet both sides persist.
Historically and energetically, I know that when a system is broken – not serving the highest good of all concerned – it must be dismantled. That dismantling is often violent or at least protracted. Over time, the rotten roots are pulled out, the energy transmuted, and a new system in alignment with new values created.
This is the transformational process I’ve been immersed in during the last 9 months of my marriage. It is the transformational process I describe in the Dragonfly Lifestyle. I have consciously lived it so many times I trust it implicitly. The rhythm, the patterns, the seasonality of it.
There will be pain and suffering. There will be collapse, war, street fights, death, loss, and grief. We will all experience it in one way or another, even as those most vulnerable bear the brunt. But there will also be rebirth.
The arc of transformation is a slow one. Like the birthing process itself, there is contraction and release, one step forward, two steps back, pain and bliss. Yet there is always progress whether we hear, see, feel, or experience it or not. Eventually the baby is born, and in time, we forget the pain and suffering and simply love. We move on to another season with its own joys and tumults.
May we be guided by this model, trust in the process, and do our part - the next indicated thing - in our communities as we pray, heal the parts of us that are suffering and traumatized, and act to birth a more just, inclusive, and egalitarian life and country.
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