Circles to Spirals
"Circling" means going around and around on the same path, each turn starting and ending at the same place. "Spiraling" also means going around and around, but the end of each turn occurs at a slightly different place from the beginning of the turn. As the earth circles the sun, we go from spring to summer to autumn to winter and back to spring again. As the moon circles the earth, it goes from full to waning to dark to waxing and back to full again.
As women of this planet, our bodies are affected by these yearly and monthly circles. Just as we can see because our eyes have evolved to sense the wavelengths of light given off by our sun, so there are ways our bodies are affected by the times of greater and lesser daylight, and by the waxing and waning of the moon.
But our cycles are spirals, not circles. After a turn of the wheel, the woman who sees this year's spring is not the same woman who saw last year's spring; she is changed by the year's experiences. Some year, between two Spring Equinoxes, she will have spiraled into death. The spirals of our lives are continuous and one-way; even between full moons, we are changed. We feel the changes; the longer we live, the more obvious that we have changed over the years, in a way that the seasons and phases of the moon do not.
And yet and yet...as above, so below.
The moon waxes and wanes...and waxes again.
The sunlight grows stronger and weaker...and stronger again.
May we not do the same?
Observe the effects on yourself of studying nature, nature that is intimately and obviously connected to your own body. Learning about the Wheel of the Year will illuminate your passage through the Blood Mysteries, as Moon Magic will Our Menses. Click on the links, and the links will click.
