​Summer Solstice
On Summer Solstice we experience the longest day and shortest night of the year.
 
If you live in the northern hemisphere, Summer Solstice falls on or near June 20th. On this day, the sun reaches its northernmost point in sky. It’s the sun’s pinnacle moment, after which the days will progressively grow shorter until the Winter Solstice in December.
 
At Summer Solstice, the energy supports creative expression and full blossoming of your heartfelt desires.
 
Summer Is Here
Summer officially begins at Summer Solstice. In previous articles on Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, I explain how our personal creation cycle shifts through stages of yin and yang and how the seasons mirror the yin/yang creation cycle.
 
In the seasonal creation cycles, summer is the most yang (active, outward, hot, expansive) time of the year. We move more, we spend more time outdoors, and we receive the heat of the sun.
 
During summer, the seeds that germinated over the winter and spouted in the spring are now plants growing to maturity, flowering, and bearing fruit.
 
The coming of summer brings us into the season of the fire element. In the Five Elements of Chinese medicine, at Summer Solstice we move from the wood element of spring to the fire element of summer.  
 
What are the properties of fire? When in balance, fire is cleansing, life-giving, alchemical, transformative, and high-energy. An imbalance of fire can be unstable, uncontrollable, and all-consuming.
 
Focus Your Energy
Although we are in a creative state all through the year, during summer we see creation in full action. It’s visible, tangible, and apparent to the senses. We see this in the flora and fauna. We see it in the behavior of people and animals. We feel within ourselves a great permission, invitation, and desire to go out, be active, and take action.
 
This summer you are supported to be in action with your desires and dreams. Using your inner fire for its greatest good will require balance. Too much activity without purpose can scatter and drain your energy. Be discerning with how you spend your time. Take care not to overdo.
 
Enjoy the party that is summertime, but continue to take care of yourself, rest when needed, and maintain that connection to your inner voice.
 
What has been calling to you? What aspect of your life is chirping in your ear, asking for attention? What yearnings of the heart are surfacing? What will you focus on this summer?
 
Whatever you choose to create, summer brings the energetic support for it to come forth into physical action or physical form. The wood is primed to catch and begin to burn with creative fire when you provide the initial spark of focused desire in action.

Have you noticed the tulips reaching up their stems, and the crocuses blooming in the neighborhood lawns? Ready or not, the annual spring sprouting is upon us!
 
Since the Winter Solstice in late December, the days have grown consistently longer as they always do in winter. This weekend on March 19-20 we reach the Spring Equinox, a moment when night and day come into balance. This equaling of dark and light signals the first day of spring—an event bursting with creative power.
 
Spring and the Creation Cycle
Whether you consciously tune in to it or not, the energetic influences of the seasons offer structure and support for your personal creation cycle.
 
Each year the seasons flow from the yin energy of winter (internal, passive) to the yang energy of high summer (external, active), and back again. Your personal creation cycle has a similar flow.
 
In the first stage of creation we turn inward to draw on our inner guidance and germinate the seeds of inspiration—this is like winter. The second stages invites us to come forth with our desires and reveal them to the light—this is like spring. Then as our creation takes shape, we bring it into full action and expression in the third step—this is summer. Finally, we receive the outcome or bounty of our work and begin to turn inward again—this is the harvest in the fall. 
​Here we are in spring: wet, muddy, messy, volatile, and full of promise.
 
The Energy of Spring
Spring is associated with the energy of rebirth, renewal, and the dawn of new opportunities. Eggs are associated with spring as they signify the coming of new life. Many current and ancient cultures and religions mark the time of the Spring Equinox with festivals and ritual.
 
In Greek mythology, at the Spring Equinox the Earth goddess, Demeter, reunites with her daughter, Persephone, when Persephone returns from the underworld after living there during the six months of fall and winter (this has to do with the six pomegranate seeds she ate). As Demeter rejoices, life returns to the plants and animals of the earth.
 
In the Chinese five elemental system, spring represents the wood element which carries the energy of impetus and initiative. It’s the wood element that gives the tiny seed the energy and gusto to push through the soil toward the light and begin its life.
 
These spring energies remain around us and within us for the next three months.

Wake Up and Smell the Fertile Soil
If you are still ambling through your winter slumber, if earlier sunrises and later sunsets or louder birdsong and warmer temperatures have not roused you yet, the Spring Equinox invites you back to life! It’s time to bring forth the ideas and desires that have been germinating inside you and show them the light of day.
 
Each annual creation cycle offers six months of active yang energy: three months in spring (March-June) and three months in summer (June-September). Farmers hold a keen awareness of this limited time opportunity, called the growing season. Knowing that in September the annual opportunities for new growth come to a close, farmers don’t delay planting their crops at the first opportunity of spring.
 
Like the farmers’ growing season, we are also impacted by the realities of the annual creation cycle. Jump on the spring bandwagon if you haven’t already. Move into action. The energy is ripe and the soil is ready.

Next Steps for Spring
What's been germinating for you? What seeds of ideas and visions have you been tending over the winter? How will you begin to bring them out? All creative seeds are viable--whether they lead to large external life changes like job or relationship changes or more subtle internal shifts like behavior and attitude adjustments. 
 
Don’t worry if you don’t have a 12-month plan clearly mapped out. That’s not what’s called for in early spring. Observe the seedling. Its job and sole focus at this time is to emerge from the soil and see light. What happens after that? Well, stay tuned in late spring and summer as creation takes full shape. For now, just take the the first steps into action.
 
Don’t have a clue what’s ready to come forth? You can still sync yourself to the prevailing spring energies by starting to come out in small ways. Speak your ideas in daily conversation. Share a realization with a trusted friend. Say hello to a neighbor, write a letter, turn the soil in your garden, plant seeds indoors, register for a class, do research, move your body.

As you move into action, your creativity will engage and inform your next steps. Watch and listen. Connect to your inner guidance for direction. Notice what catches your eye. Pay keen attention to those things that spark your feelings of enthusiasm. Fueled by your intuitive insight, the picture of your coming year will begin to take shape.
 
Get Messy With It
Spring discovery is naturally messy. It has to be. This exploratory going-into-action stage in the creative process requires doing things you've never done before, with trial and error. Wade into the mud and see how it feels. Use the next three months to test and examine your vision. Don't expect a straight-shot, ducks-all-in-a-row experience. Be prepared to start, fail, regroup, then try again with new insights. If you do, by Summer Solstice you'll have solid information based on real evidence, then it's full steam ahead. 

In the northern hemisphere, the longest night and shortest day of the year occurs around December 21st. This is the Winter Solstice, a powerful time on many levels. Paying attention to your own experience of these planetary shifts can help deepen your personal well-being and creativity. Let’s take a look at the energetic and creative forces of Winter Solstice.
 
The Light in the Dark
The height of the solstice lasts only a few moments. After the earth reaches maximum darkness, the cycle continues and the days begin to grow longer, culminating in the longest day of the year at the Summer Solstice on June 20.
 
Our agriculture-based ancestors knew this cycle intimately. During the darkest days of the year, they celebrated the Winter Solstice as the Festival of Light. It seems ironic to be celebrating the return of light on the darkest day of the year, but isn’t that the way our story goes on Earth—both literally and metaphorically?
 
Dark and light are a duality: two sides of the same coin, two halves of a whole. Reaching into our darkest parts brings us back to the light, and reaching our highest awareness of light reveals to us our darkest nature. Neither one is better than the other, and neither one can be eliminated on the path toward wholeness.
 
Of course, we may have preferences about dark and light—as well as resistance and judgement. The arrival of winter has an undeniable effect on our experience of life. The shorter days and colder weather naturally push us inward. We spend less time outdoors. We cover up in thick clothing. We may sleep more (if we’re lucky). Our awareness naturally pulls into the deeper parts of ourselves.  
 
In a society that values action, productivity, and assertiveness, feeling the emotions and stirrings of our inner world can be unsettling. When we keep this experience at a surface level, we may label it as depression or winter blues, judge it as bad, and try to make it go away. However, when we connect to the depth of what the season is offering and embrace it, we can transform the experience to one of purpose, deeper self-connection, and creative promise.
 
Yin/Yang and the Creative Cycle
The cycle of personal growth and change is mirrored in nature. Consider the plants and trees. In the fall they drop their leaves, fruit, and seeds. The seeds of the next generation of plants, while under the soil during the winter, rest and conserve through the winter. These seeds sprout into new life in the spring, grow to maturity in the summer, and bring forth fruit again in the fall.
 
One way to understand this process is through the Taoist concept of Yin/Yang, which is a way of explaining how the dualities and dichotomies in our world form the whole. Yang represents qualities such as active, hot, male, expansive, hard, day, and light. The yin represents qualities such as still, cool, female, contracting, soft, night, and darkness. As the seasons flow from winter to summer they pass through the qualities of yin and yang in a cyclical pattern.
 
The personal creation cycle has a similar flow from yin to yang and back again. We go inward and make decisions, drawing on our inner guidance. Then we go outward, take action, see our decisions manifest in the world. Then we step back to receive the outcome and turn inward again, reflecting on all that happened and making new decisions.
 
Nothing is exclusively yin or yang, this is why a dot of the opposite color appears within each side of the yin/yang symbol. There is always some yin in the yang, and vice versa. That said, wintertime has inherent yin qualities: stillness, cold, inwardness. The winter months provide an opportunity to consider all we’ve learned from the past and go within to birth the seeds of what we will create in the coming year. It’s a time of inner work, the deepest work we will do all year. The self-reflection work you do during the winter months, sets the foundation for what you will put forth in the spring and bring to fruition in the light of summer and fall.
 
Winter Solstice: What To Do Now
December 21st is not only the shortest day of the year, but also the first day of winter. Winter begins in in the darkest moment.  What do we find in the deepest dark? Mystery, the unknown, and the vastness of possibility. If you’re feeling “in the dark” about the next steps on your path or if your inner roadmap seems shrouded or cloudy, this is normal and natural for late December.
 
For now you can relax and let go into the feeling of not knowing. The innermost, mysterious processes of our subconscious are at work. This is not the time to figure it all out.
 
In a few weeks, as the light starts to slowly return in the beginning of January, new insights about the coming year will begin to bubble up from within you and continue throughout the winter months. Intuition will be very useful throughout this time.
 
At Winter Solstice, you can surrender to the unknown while having faith that the light will soon return. Rest when you need to, invite stillness, feel your feelings without judgment, slow down, exercise gently, and open your heart to yourself.