Current Cyclical Living Goals

My dreams and an honest take on Substack

A little moon phase calendar by dad got for me in Maine; art by JD O’Shaughnessy

For the last installment this month, I thought I’d write about my own current dreams and goals for living cyclically.

First though, I want to talk about living cyclically and doing this whole Substack thing.

Let’s say it: the internet is weird. And even though I’ve been constantly on it since about 2007, my nervous system and body still do not know how to handle it. More often than not, it’s too darn much. Still though, it’s a modern tool I have which can, and has, given me many things. Right now, it affords me the opportunity to scribble somethings down and shoot them out into the world. Some people have even found my words out in the wild wild interwebs, and I’m continually amazed by that. Every follow, subscription, like, and comment makes my heart leap with gratitude. Sometimes I even jump out of my chair and yell, “I got a subscriber!”

I’m wondering though how to do Substack “right” or even just “well” and also stay true to living cyclically. What even is doing it “right” or “well?” Is that getting loads of subscribers? Is it making a certain amount from paid subscriptions? I don’t know. But I feel the pressure to promote my work and—it seems to me—cajole people into doing a paid subscription. I’d be truly chuffed if you became a paid subscriber, but it feels increasing weird to make my writing off limits or create a paywall. Making comments “paid only” feels more appropriate because that’s moderation and response I may have to do. My archived work is also predominately paid only. But making my work off limits feels strange.

Additionally, it seems there are preferred publishing schedules or cadences on this platform. Sometimes, I find this hard to align with living cyclically. But how much does this matter if I’m not single-mindedly pursuing growth?¹ That being said, writing Peace of the Whole takes time and it honestly does feel good to be compensated for that.

It’s a quandary. If you have something to say about it, please head to the comments (which I’m keeping free on this one).

I feel more and more strongly that why I want to write this Substack—and why I hope it does well—is so that it goes beyond the internet. The goal for me is not thousands of subscribers, or a certain amount of income generated from Substack each month, or a book deal (God no). The goal is that I want the work I do here to go beyond the internet. I don’t really know what that means or looks like yet, but that’s the feeling I’m following.

For now, here we are though.

And with that, I’ve realized this Substack has been around for six months. Thank you for being here! I would be really touched if you’d share this corner of the internet with someone you think would enjoy it. The goal is conversation, connection, and making change. And maybe join in the comments below? Or just hang back and read until it feels right to jump in.

Current Cyclical Living Dreams/Goals

Dreaming of: living with the light

So I don’t sleep well. I haven’t for years. Zoloft and living on a busy, bright road knocked my (very good) sleep cycle out of whack and I’ve not yet recovered.

A large part of my issue is that I don’t sleep deeply. I stay in light sleep most of the night. Waking up is very hard and unpleasant. The best way I can figure to work on this is through caring for night routine and my circadian rhythm.² It’s turning out to be quite a challenge.

We know all the things “they” say about blue light. While I can, and do, shift my screens to warm in the evening or put them away, I have a bit of an added issue in that I live across the street from a large parking lot connected to a hotel. There are huge street lights that blast blue light into my house. We also have giant, nearly floor to ceiling windows in the front of our house which gives more ways for this light to get in.

After living here for about a year and a half, I finally got black out curtains for the massive front windows. They’re hideous and they’re polyester but I didn’t know what else to do. I sleep with a black out eye mask (again, sadly polyester). Both have helped some, I think. And while I could sew blackout curtains for the rest of our windows, I do want the morning sunlight to come in.³

So what do I do? I know the light is affecting me. I’ve tried to eliminate other things that might be disrupting my cycle of sleep, and it seems a disordered circadian rhythm is the main culprit. When I go away to stay at places where the sky is darker, I sleep more deeply. But moving is not presently an option.

I’m heavy in the dreaming phase for this one. Right now, I’m planning on getting redder blue light blocking glasses (the ones I have now are only mildly tinted), which I’ll use whenever I’m using my screen and as the sun goes down. I need to get back into the habit of getting sun on my skin and in my eyeballs during the morning, midday and sunset.

Beyond this, I’m not sure what to do but I’m forever keeping my eyes open to new ideas.

Dreaming of: co-existing with pollen

Whether I like it or not, allergies are part of this season here in zone 6b. Mine just kicked up this past week. Looking at the pollen forecast, it would seem the top allergens right now are grasses, plantain and nettle. So perhaps the ragweed hasn’t yet started, but the goldenrod is arriving. So ragweed must be on its way.⁴

Here we meet one of the less lovely sides of living cyclically. Pollen is part of it, and sometimes bodies react to pollen.

So I’m hoping to soon investigate ways that I can live well with the pollen. For years, I took Claritin daily (partly because I was misdiagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome) and I’d rather not go back to that. I hear there are plant sources for dealing with allergens, and I’m starting to look at a few, like—ironically—nettle and goldenrod.

Any herbalist out there? Please help me out!

Dreaming of: aging with awareness

I’m working to embrace the bigger (biggest?) cycle of life and death. Seems a doozy, but I have moments of feeling less intimidated by it now.⁵

With this, I’m increasingly aware of my body’s inevitable trajectory and breakdown. The ability to move and balance is something I feel keenly aware of and want to preserve. I have a close family member whose mobility is rapidly declining largely because they stopped moving. It seems from a young age they resigned themselves to inaction or something about movement/exercise was off putting. Then came aging, weight gain, arthritis, a double knee replacement… And now they’re verging on eighty and exist mostly in their recliner. They can’t sleep laying down anymore. They used to love to walk around antique centers or markets and they can’t really do that now. Vacations are out of the question. Their health is greatly impacted, and they’re on more medications as a consequence. It puts a strain on the people who care for them too. It’s hard to watch.

It’s been a hugely lesson for me and shown me that I need to start caring for my own aging body now.

So, this month my husband and I got rid of our couch and instead of getting a new one we got what I have long talked about: cushions on the floor.

Now they are, admittedly, cushions which can form a couch shape. And they’re actually intended for children.⁶ But we’re happy with it. It gets down to the ground, and then makes us get back up again. We had already stopped using our dinning room table and sitting exclusively on the floor to eat. I found that with my GI issues, sitting cross legged and upright really helped my posture and breathing, which helped my digestion. So we continued with that.

This is partly all inspired too by the work of biomechanist Katy Bowman. She writes about living nearly furniture free, and while I’m not yet ready to ditch my bed, I do find her perspective incredibly helpful.

The next steps I plan to take are working on my foot health. I have a bit of bunion, with one being worse from a childhood injury. I hoping to include exercises for that soon.⁷ I’ve already transitioned to entirely barefoot or minimalist footwear. Additionally, I need to keep adding more varied movement. Hopefully, in the next few years I can incorporate more swimming and cold plunges.

Dreaming of: finding rituals (together)

Finally, I’m dreaming of forming rituals around the seasons to mark and honor those remarkable changes.

As a kid growing up in “conservative,” evangelical churches⁸, I thought ritual was a bad word. Rituals, I thought, were what witches did. They were inherently demonic or pagan, though to be honest, I wasn’t sure what those words even really meant. I realize now that the structure of the churches I was made to attend were incredibly anti-ritualistic (maybe as a reaction to Catholicism). Every week was just a repeat of the last, with a bit more fanfare at Christmas. No liturgy. No age-old traditions. In my memory, even communion was done on random Sundays when the pastor felt like the church needed some cleansing.

And I realize that my tender little system would have done so well with ritual and ceremony.

So I’m starting to let myself dream about ritual observances that fall outside of what the Church, capitalism and the other powers that be have deemed worthwhile. But I have very little to fall back on. Lineage seems the best route to go with this. I’m only vaguely aware of my background though⁹ and not well connected to it. So do I perhaps just create something new? Something that feels like it honors my present reality, needs and relationships?

How we even tell which days to ritualize? How do we create rituals, which are usually traditions that have been handed down?

There are two days that feel like they ought to be set apart a bit coming up: the fall equinox and then my thirty-first birthday. Autumn is coming. My season. So I’ll likely write more about it then.

🌀 And what about you? 🌀

How’s your sleep? How’s your circadian rhythm?

If you could only accomplish one dream for this season, what would it be?

Do you have rituals you do? Any advice for forming a new one?

1. And if that’s what you’re doing, that’s totally ok! I hope I’m conveying that I personally have an odd relationship with that. My health, my body, and my family come first. Maintaining that boundary with other occupations and relationships is something I’ve long struggled with.

2. Cue me remembering to switch to my blue light blocking glasses.

3. I’m told there are “smart blinds” that go up and down according to the sun, but I just…I can’t. I don’t actually want my phone to be smart, never mind my blinds.

4. https://blog.nwf.org/2014/09/the-goldenrod-allergy-myth/

5. Thanks in part to this amazing soul.

6. https://nuggetcomfort.com

7. Feet inspo forever: https://anyasreviews.com/how-to-help-your-bunions-if-you-dont-want-surgery/

8. I would now call them all fundamentalist. Talk about a worldview detached from nature, the seasons, cycles and reciprocity!

9. Basque and German, for sure. And likely Scottish and Irish, but that’s has detailed as I know.