The Seasons & The Wheel

The year has a rhythm older than any calendar on your phone.

Light growing, light peaking, light fading, dark resting — and you are not separate from it, however much the heating bill suggests otherwise.

Marking the turning points of the year — solstices, equinoxes and the days between — gives your inner life an outer structure. Winter is for depth, not for forcing spring. Working with the season you're actually in removes an enormous amount of quiet self-punishment.

A life paced by something steadier than urgency.

Collecting festivals as aesthetic while ignoring the actual season you are living in.

• Note the next turning point of the year and mark it simply.

• Ask what this season is for, and do less of what it isn't for.

• Eat and walk with the season rather than against it.

• Which season am I in, inwardly?

• What is this time of year asking of me?

• What am I forcing out of season?

The Moon section; the Law of Rhythm; seasonal herbs in the Herbs library; The Wheel of Fortune.