A Season of Quiet Reflection

Dear reader,
I have to admit I’m slightly embarrassed. I’ve been absent from this substack. Far too absent. I’d love to tell you there hasn’t been time to write, but that wouldn’t be the whole truth. The most sincere answer is that I haven’t felt inspired to. The break I took, which was intentional, created a gap in the momentum and routine I’d gotten into of writing weekly, and then life simply became just distracting enough to pull me out of rhythm. I’d like to course correct however.

There have been several moments in my absence where I’ve thought to myself “oh, that [insert interesting idea] would be a great substack!” After which I would proceed to not write the article.

But this morning, as I sit on a back porch, rain lightly falling through the lush trees and thunder rolling in the distance, I can’t help but feel pulled to write.

I am someone who is constantly looking for patterns and seasons of life. I am fascinated by what pulls my attention and what resonates in moments throughout the year. I journal daily in a 5 year journal. I love this book. Each page has a line dedicated to the date, and beneath that, 5 sets of lines each a small paragraph long.

The entries are simple and rarely profound. “July 12th - Today I met with my friend Snuffleufagus. We went to the park. I submitted a new grant application. Day ended with phone call with mom”

Some days they are more emotional. “Today was a hard day. Couldn’t really get out of bed and the weight of guilt had me in a bit of a spiral”

But what I find truly interesting is the cycles of life I seem to fall into. I never look ahead while writing. I enter today’s details, then look above to years prior to see where I was or how I was feeling. More often than not, as in an eerie amount of the time, I will have been experiencing the same emotional cycle the year or years before as I am today.

I notice this most in the energetic waves. An entry that reads, “Today I felt incredible! The sun was shining, I got up and went to the gym. I feel focused and inspired.” Will be matched in energy and words almost to the letter in the years prior. And the same experience happens for hard days. Days where I got into an argument with someone. Days where I was feeling especially lonely. Days when I felt that my dreams were impossible to reach. Often those days would happen within the same week of the year, the year before and the year before that.

I’m about to enter year 5 of the journal, so I have a stack of evidence proving this phenomenon.

I am baffled every time I see it. And it can only draw out of me one conclusion; we are more of nature than we believe we are. When I read these entries I feel like I am a tree going through its annual cycles; “This week last year was the same time I shed my first leaf during fall”, “This day last year I blossomed my first flower and I did today also!” “Here again is the wind that takes my leaves. Here again is the light that calls them back.”

I truly believe we are seasonal. We are moving with and of the earth and Her cycles. As someone who has a spiritual connection to nature, I’ve somewhat always known this, but to have this personal data backing up the theory feels validating, and an unexpected gift from this journal.

Admittedly, I’ve started reading ahead now. To the weeks coming up. To see if there are trends arising. Cycles headed my way.

I can’t imagine there isn’t benefit to knowing that for a week in August EVERY year I seem to have an extra blast of joy and abundance. Or that in a certain week in April my life always blows up in a pretty substantial way. The wisdom reminds me of the magic I feel from a great astrology reading. Something feels familiar in the knowledge. It’s a leap, I know, from journal pages to the stars. But the journal has made the premise feel less like belief and more like memory. If you open yourself up to the possibility that the stars that appeared in the moment of your birth are an anchor tying your soul to nature at a specific time, then you can begin to surrender to the notion that you now move with nature from that anchor point. Certain times of year will feel like “your spring”, or “your fall”. Cyclical dates will reveal when best for you to plant seeds of potential, and when best to reap that work.

We are not separate from Her. We are of the earth and sky more than society has led us to remember. More than 40 hour work weeks and expectations and savings accounts and capitalism would have us believe.

I’ve missed you all.

With love, Isaac