will it go round in circles?

As I'm writing this newsletter, I'm in the process of preparing for a late winter vacation to a familiar spot in North Myrtle Beach.

And you know what? Even though hubby & I have journeyed to the same location many a time over the last 20+ years, we still use Google to help navigate the journey down and back.

It's a fairly predictable round-trip passage, but it's somehow never exactly the same. I mean, sometimes Google suggests a slight route variation. Sometimes, we decide to take a promising looking sidetrip. Sometimes, we get a little turned around after a stop and appreciate help in getting back on course. Mostly though, after all this time, we don't need help with the directions as much as we derive pleasure in what's happening outside the window while we listen to a book on tape, while also being able to check in on how the miles/minutes tick down as we get closer & closer to our destination. 

While not an infallible analogy, the idea of setting out, again and again, on a fairly predictable, somewhat familar--yet always somehow different and new--round-trip journey has much in common with women who are practicing being Well-Seasoned.

Today's newsletter kicks off a little series I've designed to explore The Well-Seasoned Woman's Creative Cycle and how it shows up again and again, in small and grand ways--like an oft traveled roundtrip journey--throughout our lives and beyond.

three important things to remember as we move through this series

#1  The Creative Cycle follows a predictable order.

When something is predictable, it means we can orient ourselves by it. We can utilize it to plan our next steps. We can more easily surrender to its inevitability. We can find a degree of comfort and faith and hope in it.

This is a very beautiful thing indeed.

Although we've spent time unpacking pieces of this pattern in The Wel-Seasoned Woman's Newsletter over the past year, I created the graphic below as a simple (re)introduction to the predictable order that Life's creative cycles take. 

#2  The Creative Cycle invites us to BE PRESENT to what is happening right here, right now, while also understanding that CHANGE lies ahead.

You in the middle of a project/role/undertaking that you find satisfying and fun, full of goodness and delight? 

Woot!!! How wonderful!! Go ahead and savor it fully & freely, understanding that it won't last forever.

You in the middle of saying a painful good-bye to something or someone? 

Whoa!! Sometimes, life is just too hard. But you know what? Go ahead and feel all the feels, allowing the grieving process to unfold naturally-- understanding that this too, shall pass. 

Whether good or not so good, let's remind each other to BE THERE for it, holding the awareness that through it all, the Wheel of Life keeps turning. 

If you follow the arrows of the WSW graphic, you'll notice that each of the four segments transitions or shifts or changes into the next thing, right? 

This makes navigating and surrendering to Change/Shift/ Transition a pretty important skill, one we're asked to practice again and again as we navigate by and surrender to the flow of the Creative Cycle.

#3  When a woman practices working WITH her Creative Cycles, she is in effect saying YES to Life itself.

It's like the winds are blowing, and if we just adjust our sails accordingly, we can say YES to the wind and experience how much more easily the voyage unfolds by working with it. Or, we can deny the wind and get tossed needlessly about. Or we can fight against the wind and exhaust ourselves to death.

I know the choice I wanna make--every day of year and twice on Sundays!

YES to the working with what IS while believing in my ability to navigate what lies ahead.  

Yes to ripening, to evolving, to growing, to maturing, to gaining experience, to participating in Flow.

Yes to Life itself.

A woman's chronobiology involves timely rhythms embedded in her DNA. P.S. These same rhythms are embedded not only in humans but also in animals and plants and fungi and yeast. They are natural and primal and actively functioning whether or not we're conscious of them.

Here at the Well-Seasoned Woman's Studio, we're all about bringing awareness to our chronobiology and our natural, instinctual drives, and then practicing working WITH and not against these forces as we evolve through the Times and Seasons of our lives.

Whenever I get to feeling like I'm just spinning in circles, spinning my wheels, or spinning out of control, what helps most is pausing, catching my breath, and reorienting my outer and inner selves with the predictable patterns upon which Time and Season unfold. 

This simple ritual is like my inner Google, supporting me while my Wheel of Life revolves. 

I now understand that there are often variations in the way each day and month and year and decade of the pattern are experienced. There is often a sidetrip involved. There are times when I get a little turned around and need help getting back on course. But when I can work with WHAT IS, I so often derive pleasure in what's happening in the world OUT THERE and the world IN HERE, all the while holding space for the inevitability that the next thing is drawing nearer.   

It's a journey worth sharing. 

Just another reason why I'm so glad you're here :)