The seasons. Weather seasons and harmony in life.

The Seasons

by Sherry Armendariz

Fall

I stand in the orchard giving the thirsty trees one last drink before the winter rains, and watch the water run over the parched, cracked earth. I feel I'm being drawn inside, like I'm shutting down for the season.

The sun slips slowly behind the pines, as the neighbor's horse, Champagne, and I share apples. Early in the season she would never come to my whistle, but as the hot summer days filled her nostrils with the smell of ripening apples, she decided to make a friend of me. And it worked. The minute I close the gate and head down toward the trees, there she is, intent on my every move.

So the apples don't seem to make it to the kitchen or even out of the pasture. I take a couple of bites and hold the remaining apple out to her. She looks like a lady at a tea party who's only going to take a dainty bite, but I feel her soft warm nose on my palm as her lips gently take the whole apple. There we are like two old ladies gossiping over the fence, sharing secrets. I have her total attention until the male across the street snorts a couple of times and off she goes, galloping to the top of the hill, her tail flying.

As the days get cooler I see myself, clients, and friends looking for lost love and forgotten family, and grieving for the past. "If only ..." "Why didn't I ...?" With each leaf that falls to the ground, many of us feel a loss, an emptiness. We keep looking for the home fires and hearth, a place to belong, to feel warm and loved.

Fall is a time to be nurtured with hot cereals, thick soups, barley tea laced with rice milk. As the fog gathers and hangs like laundry in the trees, it's time to pull out the heavier pans, fire up the oven for baked squash, apples and casseroles.

The fruit dryer is stuffed with pears, grapes and figs. The garage is cleaned out to make way for boxes of apples and homemade pickles. Part of me wants to clean out closets, cupboards and corners. Another part of me wants to let it all be, like the messy flower beds and the dirty car. After all, it can all wait until spring. I don't want to disturb anything - especially me. If I don't clear the leaves from the flower beds and the lawn, the wind does it for me. It's like the earth knows it's time to cleanse itself. The wind blows for days. Standing at the window, watching, I imagine my past grievances blowing away.

Immediately, life becomes simpler, cleaner and less congested.

My body repeats the congested pattern in my lungs. So on my long morning (mourning) walks through the crunchy leaves, I do some clearing of old emotional patterns. I look at the old houses around me and remember with much sadness the childhood I left behind, the comfort I left behind, the loved ones I left behind.

I say good-by to the past, realizing that this year, like so many others, I have saved so little for myself. I honored others first and ended up giving myself away. I resolve to have more compassion for myself this year and keep back a reserve of energy.

With that resolve, I drive further into the country and pick cucumbers, apples and squash for pickling, canning and preserving. I feel a contracting, a returning to the earth and warmth. As the leaves on the citrus curl, I also need protection against the elements. My meditation lengthens, my affirmations become detailed, my chanting becomes louder. I become aware of my needs and wants and don't resist them.

The catalogs weigh me down as I trudge up the hill from the mailbox. They're filled with wool plaids, down jackets and heavy tweeds. Already I feel warmer.

But it's also a paradoxical time. As the squash plants start to die, the roses are blooming, their buds off; the season feels dry and brittle, but also damp and misty. It's a time of staying home and protected. But school and classes are starting up, inner conflicts are rampant. The job feels old but secure; do I dare look for something new? And the relationships - can I really tolerate these old patterns from myself and others? Do I really want to grow and risk opening myself to pain? It's a time of leaving the old and starting the new.

It's like the end of the movie; I just want to stay in the lobby near the popcorn machine.

So I toast the millet, make apply crisp, get out the buckwheat noodles, light the fire, and allow myself the gift of grieving. In a little corner in my mind, I see the new, soft, green shoots of daffodils, and a new season - new me.

Winter: A time for Going Inward

I rip the weeds wrapped around the Rototiller shaft. It goes in the shed along with the other tools I've carelessly left out all summer and fall, The shears, rakes, and hoes blink their rusty freckles at me, but the day is late - I'll sharpen them in the spring. The saucers I remove from under the drowning pots; the succulents find home under the protected eaves of the house.

It's time for going inside, for gathering, for nurturing, for finishing, for connecting - but the outside calls me. Clippers in hand, I head for the orchard where the apply trees raise their naked branches to the sky. The trees shiver in the icy air - goosebump buds swell under the bark.

The pasture is covered in summer sunburned brown stubble. Through the broken, brittle grass snakes a jagged river of green, left by the leaky hose. The butterflies are gone, the wild sunflowers bend their brokenhead; the smells of summer and fall vanish in the acrid smell of winter.

I feel the resistance of the shears as I prune the misbehaving and excess branches. My cloud of breath is pierced by the branch twisting toward me. As I work, the conflict of cold air on my warm face clouds my glasses.

I'm like the tree I'm pruning. The old, the excess, the ravaged, must be cut away to make way for the new. The tree does not bleed - its energy is deep within. Winter is a withdrawing time, a reserving time, a thoughtful time.

I do not want to be doing this. I want to be inside by the fire, wrapped in flannel and wool, reading something soft and illuminating.

The only softness out here in the pasture is the orange striped cat, begging attention by rubbing the back of my legs. I don't have time for this. I want to finish this job and get inside. Exasperated, I relent. The cat gets its way. I cut, then lean down and pet, cut, then pet, but it's not good enough. Once too often, I cut, cut, then pet. He backs away, takes a running leap and attacks my leg.

The clippers fall into the jumble of limbs. No, this is not what I want to be doing. Like the dormant trees and the hiding pond turtle, I want to hibernate. My body has already slowed down in rhythm with the season.

My morning walks are shorter. I leisurely exercise in front of the TV, I shove the Jane Fonda tape to the back. I pace myself. My energy has shortened these days. I still have two cords of eucalyptus to stack before the heavy rains. Each day I pile ten pieces of wood, then urge myself to stack another ten - soon there's a hole in the pile. Each expenditure of energy has to be wheedled, coddled, and teased. I jealously guard it, trying to keep it for myself.

Meals become simple affairs of chowders from the cast iron pot, and a big plate of cornbread liberally laced with cheese and corn and pasted with fiery jalapeno jelly. The pantry is bulging with food. My body, with a new protective layer of fat, takes turns wanting to be soothed and kick started.

Saying grace is special this time of year. Family and friends take the time to reflect, resolve, and request. We create a special meal time space with candles, greenery and cloth napkins. We gather and talk.

Hearts open up in the warmth of hearth and home.

Alone, I curl up under a pile of dogs and cats and nurse my contemplative state with a hot toddy. Outside, the cold dries and crystallizes my skin. I think I hear it crack when I grimace. First my nose gets cold, then my fingers and toes and then it seems as if someone cut a hole in the back of my jacket. I feel the cold blow through to my hollow chest.

I change the bedding to flannel and down; I have down on top of down. Still I wear my socks to bed. I pray there's not an earthquake to shake me from my nest. I feel guilty staying in bed past the appointed hour for rising. If I get a cold or the flu I'll be able to stay here all day. The thought tugs at the blanket of my mind.

The pasture looks like a study in order and chaos-with chaos ahead. The cat, satisfied he has my attention, saunters off, flicking his tail in long swooping strokes. At the gate he stops and cleans himself. Smugness is the order of his day.

The horse, Champagne, ignores me completely. The apples are gone. My pockets are empty. I can offer her nothing. She rolls in the soft, damp ground. She's distant and aloof with me. The only time she pays me heed is when I talk to the horses in the next pasture. Suddenly, she runs to me demanding equal time.

Christmas - the time of the child - came and went like an uninvited guest. Clients, friends and I felt guilty, anxious and fearful as the 25th approached. Christmas "shoulds" of love, warmth, togetherness and expectations filled our thoughts. The closer the day, the more the wounded child cowered in the corner of our hearts feeling unprotected, unloved, and unfinished. Old hurts raised their ugly heads.

Home draws us to be the child again. But is it the home of family and friends or a deeper spiritual home we yearn for - a place of nurturing, unconditional love and protection.

The work progresses slowly. Half the pruning is done. The old makes way for the new. I look at the houses on the adjacent hills. Because of my work I know the secrets they hold. One family, eager to move to open spaces, feels threatened by the world closing in on them. They shroud their fear with an alcoholic haze.

Inside an elegant house of redwood and beveled glass, sits a middle-aged woman in her fuzzy flannel nightdress. The peter pan collar and lace gathered at her sleeves are as incongruous as her little girl voice.

Part woman and part child, she spouts endless spiritual doctrines while living in a world of debauchery and demons. It's easier for her to live in this nightmare than go within and exorcise her devils.

Another house, towering above the others, keeps sentinel watch - it's windowed eyes never close. The occupants inside never stop. They work 15 hours a day creating power, wealth and respectability to hide a past of incest and sexual rage. The busyness keeps them from their pain - and their peace.

I look at my own house and see the battle scars, the deep wounds and healing scabs. It's been a year splattered with scalding pain that allowed us to touch our core and see who and what we are. The house looks exhausted from the assaults and the slow healing process.

Do I have the energy for anything more? I stop clipping, take off my gloves and see if I can feel my energy. My body is silent. I breathe deeply. There is something very deep inside. I locate it in my solarplexus. I place my hands over it; there's a fullness, a quietness, a warmth. In my mind's eye, I see a well filled with water to the top. It shimmers and then is still. It seems to be waiting.

The job is done. The trees look clean, clear and strong. I gather up the twigs and branches and add them to the pile of debris then make my way to the house for peace, protection, and hot cocoa, laced with peppermint schnapps.

Spring: A Time for Emerging

The pruning is done, spraying is done, fertilizing is done - I am no longer needed. I stand alone in the orchard - just observing. Dark puddles lie quietly, heavily, like black steel weights at the base of each tree.

The arms of the fruit trees, raised in supplication toward the sun, are jeweled with light, translucent blossoms.

Spring - a time to watch, to let be, to just be. The emerging is here - it needs no help. The trees and roses in the back acre that escaped the pruning are also blossoming, blooming, being. Nature is on automatic. I am a bystander.

I feel off balance by spring. It's always here before I'm ready. Grass and weeds dormant, broken and brown just a few days ago, (so it seems) are now waist high, a vibrant verdant veld, shielding all the daffodils, narcissus, and iris.

Masses of pastel, fragrant stock line the walk trumpeting spring. Finches, sparrows, and juncos fight at the feeders scattering seeds. Green sunflower sprouts carpet the ground below.

Inside the house, the fire burns low. I clear out drawers, cupboards, scrub the fishbowls clean. My African violets I energetically re-pot.

The animals are bored and restless. Cinnamon, the cocker, stands impatiently by the door - one tennis ball in her mouth, two at her feet. Patches, the spaniel, looms over the cats until they move then frantically chases them out the flapping animal door. Missy, the terrier, lies morosely on the rug, despondent because the rain kept us from our walk the last three mornings. The cats, all four of them, spread as liquid over the back of the couch resting from their forays into the tall grass. Their gifts of bloody entrails lie at my feet. When they aren't hunting or sleeping they race around the house, ambushing each other as they spring like gazelles over the dogs. Patches is caught unaware. She races to catch up.

Cooking bores me. I want to eat in exotic restaurants in exotic lands - but home is where I stay. Heavy cast iron pots are shoved to the back of the cupboard while stainless steel pans are moved to the front. Heavy baking is replaced by light saut'ing. Buckwheat becomes millet. Cooking is faster, lighter. Breakfast is simple brown rice and raisins and lunch is a light lentil soup. Wine is white, popcorn is lite, chocolate becomes carob. I'm not eating after 5 p.m. In spring, it's easy to cut down, cut back. I'm also emerging - going outward. My body is emerging. The winter layer of protective fat is peeling away. I don't need the constant solace of food. I need to be lighter for my expansive journey.

My energy is unfolding. All winter I agonized, resisted, fought with a book outline and proposal. With spring I emerged from the fog. One morning I awoke and there was my theme. As the crocus broke the earth, my work gained speed and clarity. I drove through the warm rain to deliver (in every sense of the word) my finished proposal.

My energy is lighter, almost kinetic. I want to fill in empty spots. I feel jittery, anxious, eager to start new projects, new love. I get out the yarn from the attic - no that's not what I want. Love and romance are what I want.

I also want to meditate more, but my body doesn't want to sit, languish. It wants to move, seek and find. I get impatient when the computer doesn't follow my commands, my husband doesn't understand me and the checkbook won't balance. I want what I want now - waiting will not do.

My fear is dancing toe to toe with my third chakra. My stomach aches in frustration. Third chakra is about transformation, inertia into action, energy, power, doing, success, being in rhythm, flowing. Energy and movement are one. Am I still in the darkness of winter with fighting, fearing ... failing?

I actively work to conquer fear. The house is filling with smoke, the chimney is clogged with paper cinders in the spark screen. I get out the ladder, slowly climb to the edge of the roof. My knees shake. I go back down. Smoke barrels out the door. I climb back up the ladder. Why am I so afraid? I ask God to help me. I stand still gathering strength and courage. I head up the ladder. My husband drives up. I'll conquer my fear of heights next year. Failure stings my eyes.

The real fear is being afraid to feel the power within - power to, not power over. Spring brings the power to, combines it with the will from the solar plexus and creates action. I'm so afraid to move forward. It touches my shame that I'm not good enough. Can negative ego override the rhythm of nature? I breathe deeply to reconnect. The air is light and smells moist and green. I breathe into my lower chakras and connect with the creative aspects that can become form and manifestation. Am I ready?

Clients, friends and I spent the winter grieving. Sons, daughters, parents, friends, relationships and jobs died. Coming from that thick and sodden place of grief, people are reborn. The anger and bitterness are moving out leaving forgiveness and love in their place. Cancers are in remission. Death is looked at with clean unblinking eyes. Love and libidos gather force. Coming from a winter fog of doubt and fear, we're moving on the conveyer belt of spring, purposefully toward the unknown with more faith and trust.

The sun shines on the catalogue I'm reading. The practical, serviceable, L. L. Bean has been discarded for Victoria's Secret. The scanty frilly and probably itchy underwear, (in L.L. Bean it's called underwear, but in Victoria's Secret... lingerie) teases me. That tiny white teddy with the wispy lace, could I? I move ahead to the sundress section.

I stand on the hill overlooking the valley. Every orchard is swimming in yellow mustard. Falls of brilliant pink sedum spill down the hills. I hear the birds, dogs and horses calling to each other, demanding to be heard. In the corrals, the horses dance, prance, nibble and bite. Long necks intertwine, noses nuzzle, lips curl back. Manes and tails toss and flick with abandon. Colts, lambs, and goat kids dot each pasture. 'Free Kittens' signs paper the telephone poles. I walk home to the orchard.

Champagne, the neighbor's mare, only has eyes for the stallion across the road. They whiny and snort together. She gallops with a lightness, a purpose, an extra wiggle.

I pick up a young tree breakfasted by a gopher. I look at all the barren places I can plant new healthy robust trees, but first things first. I head for the house planning a romantic candlelit bath for two.

Summer: A Time of Fire

Mud splatters my ankles as water from the hose splashes in the dusty basins circling the apple trees. Amber gold and burnt red apples hang heavily. The purple plums escape their confining skins through cracks and splits. Apricots dribble their juice to the ground below, inviting ants and finches for a feast. The reddish-black figs sag languorously from the limbs.

The garden of spring was soft, yellow and round. The garden of summer is an explosion of spikes, thorns, reeds, and stalks in ripened reds, brilliant blues, and gigantic greens.

Summer, a time of fullness, a time of excess, a time of heat. Heat so intense it becomes fire. The heat rises from the ground in shimmering sheets and distorts the view like a fun-house mirror. The distortion is excess. Too much, too soon, too fast.

This is the season of the heart. The heart-the networker to the other organs, the controller of the emotional body, the protector of the spirit. It's the time to open the heart, to allow, but we can't do that if fear and anger cloak it. The closed heart is one of control, manipulation, doing. The open heart is allowing, knowing/feeling and being. The knowing is the knowing of action through inaction-allowing life to flow naturally, effortlessly-getting self out of the way.

The herb of the heart is the color of summer, red salvia to lower cholesterol, break up blood clots, and promote blood circulation.

Working with the heart chakra is breaking up the fear and anger and circulating the love, without the heat of resentment.

Fiery summer is for torrid relationships that make one flush with arousal that burns into passion. But the heat distorts and following the heart is like heading for an illusory oasis in the desert. It used to be a dangerous time for me. I used to incinerate myself in the parched desert of desire. Each July I'd find myself 'in love', usually involving chakras a little lower than the heart. My heart pounded, my throat strangled shut, and my mind evaporated. Each summer the male objects resembled one another, clones from the Sherry 'crush' line.

Finally, a friend told me, 'You're not in love with him, you're just looking at yourself.' And I was. The summer heat had created a fun-house mirror.

I'm not the only one betrayed by summer passion. Champagne the horse, who during spring frantically pranced, danced, and flew at the stallion across the way, was ignored, unfulfilled, and languished away the summer in solitude. She feverishly eyes the apples just out of reach, but no amount of fruit will satisfy her craving for the sweetness she missed.

The taste of summer is bitter like parsley, kale, mustard greens and cucumber. The sweetness of corn and tomatoes and fruit complements that biting edge. To even the outside heat I quickly saut the bounty from the garden or toss it with grains in a salad. I work to remind myself that in this season of excess I mustn't overcompensate with icy drinks and frigid food. My body has to spend extra time warming up the cold and the effect is lost.

As I protect my body with food, I cover my skin from the unrelenting scorching heat. I shield my heart from the heat of anger and fear, guard my summer machinery with oil and coolant, grow my m'che greens in the shade of the corn. All is protected, guarded and in balance.

Balance. Clients, friends, and family are all walking that tightrope between depletion and excess. The small intestine is the second organ of summer. It separates and gives information to the heart. Dreams of fire abound. Fire is the leveler, the destroyer, and in its destruction makes way for the new. But we must not consume ourselves in the process.

Burn-out at work is common now. Like my car that overheats- boils, breaks and dies-I must equalize with coolant. For me the heat is priorities, deadlines, family, me, clients, garden, work. They all demand, require, ask, need, but there's only one me, so to cool, I have to define; find what I need, what I want, and place each step firmly on the ground. I have to cool down or slow up and not waste anything, especially myself. It's a time of going back and picking up lost threads to complete the pattern, see the symmetry.

Clients returning to group feel defeated because they flamed out. They return to be reminded to bank their fire, honor their heat, revere their cool. We begin group with a breathing exercise called 'gathering the chi' and from there move into chanting and drumming. This allows us to listen to the music of our heart and follow it to a deeper level. Fire tempered with discipline becomes a harmonious spiritual practice - slow, methodical, and purposeful. This is taking the fire inward.

The sun erases my shadow in the heat of noon as I gather dahlias, gladiolas, and roses. All summer the garden has demanded water, fertilizer, heat and love. I look at my own demands and labor to remember to allow the fire, bank the fire, fan the fire, feed the fire, starve the fire, all in my dance to keep the fire in harmony and myself in balance.

If you enjoyed these reflections on the seasons, we invite you to discover other thoughtful and personal writings in the pages of The Best of Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Vol. 26 (2000/2001). These can be ordered directly from this website; please click on "How to Order."