The Cycles Still Matter…But How Much?
Is living cyclically an aesthetic? Is it subversive? How far do we take it?
If you type “living cyclically” into your search engine of choice, you’ll probably get things about living with the seasons and the menstrual cycle. A lot of what I’ve found looks like moon cycles, baskets of flowers, wombs, bowls of thoughtfully prepared vegetables, and women with flowing hair, dancing in golden fields. And those are lovely thing1, although the amount of women dancing in fields is a bit much for my taste. But I think we can take it further. Really, I think we need to take it further.
But how far?
I think living cyclically can be powerful, subversive work while also being healing.
I define cyclical living as aligning your every day to the inherent cycles of our world—seasons, circadian rhythms, moon cycles, menstrual cycles and more—and viewing them as your guides. These are the cycles that made you, and this is not how the world operates now.
So, let’s be honest. This is hard work.
A lot of the advice I see given when I search cyclical living feels a bit blasé. A bit: well just do this, it’s easy! Maybe it’s not meant that way. But when I was starting to look into this new model of thinking and being, I beat myself up for not doing it well enough, when in truth living cyclically means running counter to much of modern life.
Culturally we’ve forgotten about all of these cycles within cycles because we’ve been able to, particularly in the part of the world where I am. We have electric lights, phones, medications, refrigeration, computers, etc. We aren’t bound to cycles the way we have been for most of human history; we turn on a light at sunset, we get lemons from the grocery store in January, we take pills to reroute our menstrual cycle.
And because of those inventions and the consequent manipulate of cycles they brought, we’ve done amazing things! Let’s not forget that. But I think we may have hit the point of diminishing returns. Or, at least, all this progress and striving and bounty (for some) and consuming (of others) needs to be checked by the wisdom of the cycles that made us.
The question I find myself asking when it comes to living cyclically, is: how far do I take it? How far can I take it? How far should I take it to really be doing what I’m saying I’m doing?
Do I need to push myself further? Should I handwrite all my essays, avoiding the blue light of screens altogether? Should I only eat food that is in season or what I can preserve? Should I live by only candlelight in the evening?
And I wonder if maybe “how far do I take it” is not the most fair question.
What do the woods and fields show me? How do they do it? Does a sunflower ask how far they could push themselves to grow today? Does a wren disparage themselves because they only made a nest in a box of trash (as some did in my carport last month) instead of a tree? Are they really wren-ing properly? Is a field of goldenrod grown from a single plant to a blazing field in a year? No, of course not.
What is the natural world’s metric then? Does it have one?
I’ll likely never know the answer to these questions, so I’m trying to form a different one that doesn’t include shoulds or coulds but I can still wrap my human brain around it.
So maybe instead, when it comes to living cyclically in general and eating seasonally specifically: What would be most nourishing right now? Or, what would be most nourishing right now, knowing the next season (of nature, of my life) will come? Maybe what is replenishing for all is a good question. Maybe what gives as much as it takes or, sometimes, gives more than it takes?
The word “nourish” is branded about quite a bit nowadays, so I don’t want to overuse it. But I think that’s what’s most fitting here. What will feed, raise up, nurture, provide.2
This is subversive to the current norms. To capitalism, to hustle culture, wherever you want to point your finger. Nourishing is not the name of the game there. Taking is. Taking until you can’t take anymore.
And nourishing doesn’t look like feasting until you eaten everything in your path. Look at a garden, I have nothing to pick if there isn’t also death. Planting the seeds and picking the harvest is as much a part of it all as the decay happening in the compost pile.
It’s a slow thing, I think is what I’m saying. Living cyclically is swimming upstream, slowly, thoughtfully.
And I think orienting ourselves one degree closer to the cycles is…well, I suppose let’s not say “progress.” Instead let’s say that it’s a gift—to yourself. And more.
Here are the ways I’m engaging with cyclical living now:
🌀The circadian cycle/rhythm (Nikko Kennedy over at Brighter Days, Darker Nights really got me onto this)
🌀Living within the constraints of the season and eating seasonally. I’ll be covering this more next week. I have a lot of thoughts about, particularly as someone who used to love cooking and has really fallen out of love with it but who also is very concerned about our wildly unstable food system.
Cycles I’m interested in exploring more soon:
🌀The creative cycle
🌀Life and death cycle (mortality has always terrified me and I hope I can work towards respecting this natural cycle)
🌀The moon cycle
I’m curious…🤔
🌀What are the ways you’re bringing cyclical living into your life? Maybe it’s the tiniest kernel right now.
🌀What ways do you want to align yourself more with the cycles?
🌀What do you love about the current cycle or season you’re experiencing?
Keep your eyes open for an extra free essay later this week! 🤍
I’ve used moon cycles myself in the branding of Peace of the Whole because there’s only so many ways to representing a cycle.
Apparently this word comes from the Latin nutrire "to feed, nurse, foster, support, preserve," from *nutri (older form of nutrix "nurse"), literally "she who gives suck," from PIE **nu-tri-*, suffixed form (with feminine agent suffix) of *(s)nau- "to swim, flow, let flow," hence "to suckle," extended form of root *sna- "to swim." I particularly like this because swimming is quite nourishing to me.