I think one of my hardest learnings when I entered the world of herbalism and natural healing was the idea of self-seasonality. Here in Southwest Colorado, our winters aren’t as cold as the ones I remember from my native Massachusetts, nor are the summers as hot as more southern climes. But we still have very pronounced seasons.
The plants go dormant, the trees shed their leaves, and for four to six months of the year—the earth is mostly quiet. Birds fly south, crickets fall back into the soil so silently you almost forget their song completely. Months go by like this. And then it happens. The first spring flowers come up, the hummingbirds return on their northernly migration, and the frogs and crickets begin their summer chant.
At nearly 7,000 feet, our spring season emerges a bit more slowly, but it’s undoubtedly in full bloom now. From where I’m sitting, the lilac and serviceberry bushes are bursting with flowers, the oak trees are filling back in, and the ponderosas are already at work on next year’s pine cones.
But all of these things took time, and the lilac and the ponderosa alike needed their period of long deep winter dreaming in order to show up as fully as they are today. This is what I mean by self-seasonality. As we work to form deeper connections with the plants and the earth, we start to see ourselves less as a distinct species (or a superior one) but more as a part of the wheel. And as you journey down that garden path, you’ll start to realize that you also live in seasons.
“Contemplating plants and nature can help us find our place in the cosmos—not the one promoted by Christianity, in which humankind is asked to dominate nature, but the interconnected and interdependent place we actually hold.”
-Julia Graves, The Language of Plants
Your body, your productivity, your moods, the way you interact and move in the world—all of these things are affected and even determined by the seasons of the earth.
Modern society tells us that we must live in an eternal summer. Always young, fresh-eyed, beautiful, throwing off our best blooms every single day. In other words, always being our best, most highly-performing, present selves. But that’s not how seasons work.
Think of the lilac. Nearly all year, she’s undistinguishable from other plants. In the winter, she’s bare-stemmed, dormant and sleeping. For most of the summer and fall, she’s looks like any other green shrub, and no one is the wiser about the brief spring gifts she holds. In all of the seasons, there are only a few weeks in which she shows up in a big way—with marvelous fragrant clusters of paradisiacal purple blooms.
And while I’m not saying you need to be like a lilac, it’s worth considering that in all of the natural world, no species is attempting to perform in an eternal summer bloom quite like us humans.
I struggle with seasonal affective disorder (read: depression), and while mine is rooted in more than just the seasons, I notice how they affect me. In the darkest days of the winter, or even in the incessant spring winds, I feel myself being rocked along into the currents of the earth, and it’s not always a good feeling.
But one of the things that’s helped me this year, is to try and think of myself as just another being surviving on the earth. And just as you wouldn’t expect a lilac or any other natural creature to bloom everyday throughout the year, I’m trying to stop asking that of myself as well. Every day does not need to be my masterpiece. In fact, my masterpiece might only show up now and again. Most days are just getting through a long to-do list and making time for my partner and girls (the famous Yoko and her mom Ultra).
I don’t have it all worked out yet, but I am noticing that it’s easier to love myself when I let go of that eternal summer myth. I start looking at myself the way I would the lilac in April. Her buds are just coming out, and you know that something amazing might be just around the corner.
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