Circadian Circle Floor Cloth, Drozda, mixed media, 6×6′, in use since 1990

It’s exciting and energizing to recognize the shift in focus that takes place as each of the four gates of the natural year opens. Here, at Summer Solstice, we enter the most active quarter.
Observe nature to witness the burgeoning activity, growth, and birthing.
As we are currently in the seventh year of our current Global Creative Decade, I have linked back to the first year, 2016, so you can connect and review what it is you’ve been growing.

 

Grow, Drozda, white ink/black paper, 10×10″

To review: Spring Equinox (March 20) provides the opening to twelve weeks of reconnecting to ME revisiting a sense of self-esteem and fortifying a loving relationship with self. Practice this, even if only for fifteen minutes each day during a tune-up meditation.

Next Summer Solstice (June 21) opens the South Gate on the Circadian Circle of the Natural Year bringing the opportunity to turn attention toward one another in the WE Field. Extend and expand a sense of community and contribution. Become intentionally active and engaged, “aggressively assertive” as Maxwell Maltz states in his work on self-image in his ground-breaking book Psycho-Cybernetics.
The spring and summer quarters activate and encourage our healthy yang-masculine energy to be expressed through a passion for action. There is a natural push to grow and become more of what we yearn to be by doing what we love.
Both spring and summer are outward-yang oriented, giving us six months to develop our skills and behaviors moving in the direction of our fondest dream.

At the West Gate opening, on September 23, the quality of our creative energy makes a subtle turn inward. We feel the natural inclination to connect to a larger relationship with LIFE and the shift moves us from a primarily masculine outward-oriented focus to a more relaxed inner, Yin-feminine settling down. Each fall we begin the six-month journey into the mythic underworld to rest, rejuvenate, and reconsideration of our creative direction.

The last quarter of each year begins at the Winter Solstice (December 21). Here the deep dive takes us into contact with the MYSTERY allowing time and space for reimaging our fondest creative dream. Our dream incubates, as we hibernate (rest and reflect) so that at Spring Equinox (March 20) there is a sense of reemerging and seeing life with fresh eyes.

Martha Graham gives us a map of encouragement with her well-known words:

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

― Martha Graham

Each of the four gates acts as a portal into strange new lands that beckon and invite us to enter and explore.

At the South Gate, we turn our attention from the twelve weeks of spring now expanding the aperture to engage with the wider world of WE.

Creative Journal Prompt:

What might we accomplish together that is impossible to make happen on our own?

Take a moment to retrace your steps to last year at this time. What were you up to? What held your attention, and how did you connect with your community?

A lot happens in the span of twelve months. Each time we approach an equinox or solstice gate it helps to reorient and realize that we are not the same. We are never the same two days in a row much less year after year.

It’s this quality of becoming more that propels us forward.  Here’s a spontaneous 3-minute video to refresh your engagement with the South Gate. Please like, comment, and subscribe to the channel as I will be adding short videos regularly to inspire us to aspire, and grow together in this Vision Quest year…

 

A powerful chant for this quarter could be:

Something wonderful is emerging, something wonderful is on its way!