The Spiral
On belonging and cultivating deep relationship with the natural world
I am finally feeling the gears start to shift, to turn again.
The last two years have been quite a trial for me – asking me to rest, asking me to figure out how to find a full stop so that I can more intentionally choose my next direction. Time after time I was asked to rest, and time and time again I wouldn’t, or I would partially rest, or rest for a moment, and then go back on to my regular onslaught of life. But life felt like just that – an onslaught. Everything felt disorganized, I felt distant from my life itself, always behind, always not quite doing what I wanted, always low on energy or inspiration.
I still don’t think I have fully figured out how to surrender and rest. In fact, I know I haven’t. I know that there will be a time again that asks me to rest, to go a layer deeper, to find yet a truer, more nuanced form of surrender within myself. I know this because that is how life, and time, work. That is how our earth, and all of us beings, move—in a spiral. We learn, we grow, and the next time around we are asked to go a layer deeper, learn a harder lesson, stretch ourselves a bit more, tiptoe out of our comfort zone, expand our energy a bit further, create a bit more boldly, show up a bit more daringly than the time before.
I’ve written before about the idea that we move through larger ‘seasons’ of life, ones that emulate the natural seasons of our earth. And the more I live, the more I’m finding this to be true.
I don’t exactly know how I moved from the winter I’d felt stuck in for so long into this new spring. But I think a huge part of it was about finally accepting the winter for what it was, and finally allowing myself to fully rest and ‘to that inner winter.
I think the last of my ‘winter’ came to a close on my recent trip to Orkney in May. I was still feeling that internal winter when I arrived, and so were the islands around me. I spent my weeks in a cold, 30ºF Orkney — unusually cold for May. I was told the lambs were struggling in the cold, and as I spent my days walking their fields, I felt that struggle with them. I watched as they’d huddle against their mothers, trying to block out the fierce westerlies.
The wind battered me my first week there, and while I battled with it, I was battling with my mind too. The physical barrage mirrored the chaos of my overactive, chattering mind. I was exhausted by it, enraged by it, having listened to my monologues for far too long. Eventually though, I became resigned to it. The wind taught me much while there — lessons on true surrender, on letting go of control, on seeking shelter when I need it. And as I learned this physically, I began to practice it internally too, finally accepting the never-ending chaos of my mind. With that acceptance, when I finally sought true refuge from the gale of thoughts, finally the quiet arrived. And with it, the clarity. The things I longed for but couldn’t force came into clarity as I surrendered. In the new quiet of my mind, I could finally listen, I could finally hear a more true, sure voice that was waiting to guide me into spring. A winter that felt like forever finally gave way to the promised spring.
Now I know this has all been quite vague and enigmatic as I write about my trip, I promise I will share more about my Orkney journey in the future. But Orkney taught me over and over that the natural world around me could teach me about the world within me. That our lives are a mirror of the natural ways of the world.
Four years ago, a friend sent me a small book that began a shift, changing everything for me. The book ‘The Little Book of Nature Blessings’ still holds the note this friend sent with it —“I hope you’ll love this book as much as I think you will.” I don’t know if she could have known how much I truly would love it, and live it. The book itself is special of course, but what it speaks and teaches about — living in beautiful connection with the earth and the seasons— was not new to me. I grew up in a beautiful landscape and experienced the richness of all four seasons of the year. As a child, I lived for the fall: the start of school, the feeling of ‘harvest season’, the cool air, the sweaters, pumpkins, hayrides and cornfields, piles of leaves and bonfires. I loved the winter though too: carols, twinkling lights, the story of advent, candles. I had such sheer delight when I would wake up to snow. I loved studying fractals of ice, and I remember so fondly the quiet of the world on those cold winter mornings as I waited for the bus. I adored spring almost as much as fall. I loved the first time you would step out and feel the sun warm on your skin. I loved the gentle unfolding of brown into green as the woods around me came alive again. I loved Easter eggs and pastel dresses, birdsong, fawns, and lambs abound. And summer too meant swimming and ice cream. The smell of bug spray and sunscreen meant a day in the woods. The woods were so alive and the days felt endlessly long.
I’ve long loved the seasons, though I hadn’t thought of it in that way when I was young. Once I went to college and moved to Chicago, once I began to integrate into an urban way of living, I lost touch with this simplicity, this natural way of moving with time. My move back to Colorado, coupled with this little blessing of a book, brought me back to my path. That book connected for me something I already inherently knew — that we are natural beings, and as natural beings we are meant to flow with the earth.
So much unfolded for me in those first few years of living in Colorado. I began to find my way back to a feeling of peace, of belonging in and with the natural world. And as I attuned more to the shifts of the seasons, I was attuning to my inner seasons too. As I explored the rugged landscapes around me, I was delving into my inner landscapes as well, learning about who I am and who I want to be. This correlation is no coincidence. To cultivate a relationship with the natural world is to cultivate a relationship to ourselves, to our own natural way of being.
Each trip around the sun I find that my relationship and understanding of the natural world, and of myself, deepen. And I have come to recognize that this is by design. When we sit with the natural world, we can see that time isn’t linear — for ourselves or for the earth. The rhythm of the natural world is cyclical, or, more so, it moves as a spiral as evolution nudges the cycles onward, forward.
The work of being in relationship with the natural world is interwoven with the work of being in relationship with ourselves. It doesn’t matter where you begin — if we seek first to deepen our connection with the earth, we naturally begin to deepen our connection with ourselves. At the same time, if we seek out a deeper understanding of ourselves, we are naturally drawn to making sense of our own source, our own belonging, our own lineage, which always leads back to the earth. These two relationships are not independent, they are expressions of the same thing — a connection between our bodies, our souls, and our earth — it is all entangled, inseparable. And yet, this is something we seem to have forgotten. In our current world, we humans often imagine ourselves as being separate from the earth…but there was never, has never, been a separation.
The beauty of this is that we, as creatures of this earth, can find the one place we truly, fully belong—with the earth. In a world where we are asked to be so much, when we are asked to isolate and continue to move up and up, it is such a relief to know that we are just simple creatures. That we truly belong to something, and to each other. That we can simply be here to live and enjoy our connection with all other things.
When we recognize our connection, or inherent belonging to this earth and its ways, we can also recognize that as natural beings, our bodies and spirits move in time with natural rhythms, just as does the bear, the oak tree, the deer, the rabbit. We can make sense of our own cycles by looking to the earth and its other creatures as teachers. We can see how the rhythms of our natural world inform us of our own internal rhythms through creation, rest, grief, joy, care, reflection, connection. The seasons can be our best guide to finding our way through our lives. When we choose to live in communion with the earth and its rhythms, our own paths become so much simpler and clearer.
When we make this choice, when we choose to foster a relationship with the earth, with the seasons, we are asked to step further than just observing seasons as they shift. It is about being an active participant, immersing ourselves in the flow. We may mentally know we are a part of these cycles, but returning into relationship with the earth is about returning to a natural rhythm that our bodies still remember —a rhythm woven into the turning of the seasons and the living world around us. The lamb, though battered by the wind, never questions if it belongs in the meadow. The oak knows it is deeply rooted into the forest. They live with the elements and the rhythms from which they were formed. And so can we again.
This asks us to remember that our lives move in seasons as well: beginnings and endings, growth and dormancy, grief and celebration. To really feel and live with these transitions, we must practice being slower with our time. There is power, beauty and immense growth that can come with slowing down enough to be with these shifts. In this slowness, we can begin to revive rituals and rites of passage that help us move through those thresholds with intention rather than simply rushing past them. This is a returning to practices that we already inherently know — acknowledging and recognizing rituals and connections that are embedded in our bones. These rituals or thresholds then can transform; becoming moments of devotion and deep personal and communal connection: gathering with one another, marking beginnings and endings, celebrating, grieving, creating, resting, honoring and remembering that we belong not only to ourselves, but to a larger web of life.
When we learn to make space for slowness again — for ritual, for community, for ways of being that allow us to notice and listen—we allow ourselves to be shaped by the rhythm of the world around us. This slowness of living creates and expands time and space – giving room for this way of living to change us. This is how we grow, how we better ourselves, and how we can show up future generations too – through intention, attention, and care.
We are meant to be in relationship, in communion with the earth and its rhythms. I often wonder if this may be the one thing we are meant to do while on this earth. To return to that truth, to accept and flourish within the truth that we are natural beings of this earth, to live out and explore what we can about ourselves and our earth when we embrace this truth. When we live with the rhythm of the seasons, each spiral brings us deeper into our relationship with ourselves, with our ancestors, with the earth, with one another. Each spiral reveals another layer of shedding, another layer of growth, moving ever towards a place of deeper connection, integration, and wholeness.
More and more I have been exploring and cultivating my own relationships with the seasons, as well as my own internal seasons. As I have been shifting into this new spring for myself, so much in my world is shifting too. With it, I am feeling a pull toward a new unfolding for my “Grounding: A Seasonal Journey” gatherings. As I’ve deepened my own relationship with the seasons, I’ve realized that these gatherings are evolving alongside me. What we’re cultivating isn’t simply knowledge of the Wheel of the Year, or even a practice of seasonal living. It is a relationship with this living rhythm itself—with this spiral that carries us, season after season, into deeper relationship with ourselves, with one another, and with the earth. As these gatherings have evolved, I feel like they have been asking for a new name that is more attuned to all that they (and we) may become:
The Spiral: Seasonal Reflection & Ritual
If you’ve been longing to explore this way of living—whether you’re just beginning or you’ve been walking this path for a while—I would love to have you join us for our first gathering under this new name:
Join me this coming Saturday, August 1st from 9-11am MT online, or from the recording. Sign up here:
https://www.samantha-sheppard.com/thespiral