Seasonal Self Care in Nature – Summer to Fall Transitions
by Jocelyn Vega
“Summer is almost over” is causing a panic of urgency as the Fall Equinox approaches. We might feel the failure of not accomplishing “enough” at the same time. Summer has some of us sweating our sense of time. Connecting with self-care in nature can ease these seasonal feelings. We must recognize over-productivity and FOMO as cultural pressures that sometimes drain us more than Summer. During seasonal transitions, nature’s wisdom can move us with powerful intention.
First, it's only human to feel overwhelmed when navigating expectations to people, events, and places.
Summer is simply overwhelming sometimes. Some of us might feel sunburned under the sharp blaze of social pressures and our human capacity to maximize summer. This article will offer some approaches to support seasonal self-care and aid those social sunburns.
Engaging with your perspective could meet overwhelming moments with opportunity. If you are flooded with “too much going on,” or “everything that’s happening,” I encourage you to try this a brief meditation to expand perspective.
Pause, and take a moment, to imagine these overflowing possibilities as abundant invites from the universe. Imagine how these invites or reflect larger connections.
Can you connect to gratitude or abundance in these invites?
Can you trace feelings of belonging as the invited guest?
It’s important to not judge or guilt yourself during these observations. The goal is to simply slow down to honor ourselves first before responding to the requests of others. It’s also totally okay if the overwhelming feelings persist or that mediation isn’t helpful. It’s only human to recognize what best suits your needs.
Self-care in nature can serve as an alternative approach.
Nature holds wisdom on self-care that is available to all and at no cost. Nature equally replenishes and releases its cycles that stretch from the land to the sky and across the seas. As humans, we sometimes carry emotional weight that runs through our veins and thoughts without release or replenishment. At times our state of mind influences our existence in this world, despite living on Earth. Self-care in nature reminds us to return.
One of the boldest advocates of self-care in nature is the Sun.
In our society, burn-out culture exhausts us more than the Summer.
The Sun is a powerful and universal force that doesn’t burn itself down. The Sun isn’t tripping to outshine itself. The Sun counters our cultural pressures that we must “always be on” as our state of being. In its daily nature, the Sun models self-care in its daily Sun path that spirals from the East to West and sunrise to sunset. Even for the Sun, it must set and reset itself before it can possibly rise again.
The Sun offers wisdom to tend to our own paths that support self-care for the soul’s inner fire. Tending to our inner Sun path, as self-care in nature, could bring us closer to our inner fire, like the sun with its core that feeds its rays.
One way to explore your inner fire connection is to mediate under the daily Sun path during any, or all, of its core stages: sunrise, noon, sunset. Follow your intuition when you visit the sun stage and absorb its lifeforce energy. Welcome the wisdom that the sun could offer, like its warmth and rays directly reaching you.
Sungazing
Sungazing is an ancient practice used to harness the vital force of the Sun. \
Practice early in the morning as the Sun is rising, or late in the afternoon as the Sun is setting.
The ritual of gazing at the Sun helps us connect to the cleansing and awakening power of the brightest star in our solar system.
If you prefer more proximity to the land, spiders are an incredible model of self-care in nature.
A spider’s web reflects powerful lessons for humans. Webs powerfully uplift and stretch overlapping tensions into geographic wonders. Spiders utilize these tensions to reinforce itself as its suspended in the air.
As humans, we can envision how our tensions can build our web. We can learn from the spider to transform our overwhelming feelings or social guilt into boundaries that keep us lifted. We can revisit the messiness of the overwhelming invites to now build our own powerful web, like a beautiful spider pierced in its web’s glowing center. We can remember how the spider is the only one determining the shape of its web. The spider has the abundance to weave its own reality without becoming tangled in its own web.
Perspectives with abundance, sun energy, and spider medicine remind us of our power each season.
Self-care in nature encourages us to continue exploring how we can foster belonging with Earth. As we transition from summer to fall, I encourage us to recognize what’s flowing our way like the sun’s rays. Nature returns us to our own flow by mirroring a spider’s web glowing against the night sky.