Nature as Teacher: Living in Harmony with Cycles
Honoring the earth’s wisdom in our personal and collective growth
🌬️ Grounding Invocation
Before we begin, pause.
Place your feet on the ground.
Inhale deeply—hold.
Exhale slowly—release.
Let the rhythm of your body begin to echo the rhythm of the earth.
Whisper to yourself:
“I do not have to bloom every day to be worthy of sunlight.”
You are not out of sync.
You are simply cyclical.
Let’s begin.
Relearning Our Place in the Pattern
The earth has always been our teacher.
She knows how to die and return.
She knows how to rest without shame.
She knows how to bloom without apology.
But somewhere along the way, we forgot.
We began worshiping progress instead of presence.
We replaced rhythm with rigidity.
We mistook productivity for purpose.
Supremacy culture taught us that:
We must always be producing.
We must always be clear.
We must always be climbing.
But nature says otherwise.
Nature says:
Rest.
Pause.
Shed.
Bloom when you’re ready.
“You are not broken for slowing down.
You are just moving in season.”
My Own Relearning: A Personal Story of Returning to Rhythm
“I used to shame myself for needing rest. I would override exhaustion with over-delivery, confuse intuition with inconsistency, and fear the pauses that felt like failure. Until I started paying attention to the land around me…”
My Own Return to Rhythm: Learning from the Earth, My Children, and the Moon
When I began gardening over a decade ago, something shifted in me.
At first, it was just about food—about sustainability, about control, about nourishment. But soon, the garden became something more. The earth stopped being just a place I walked on. She became a presence. A teacher. A companion. A mirror.
I began noticing which plants returned on their own and which needed tending. I learned the difference between annual and perennial—not just in the garden, but in my own soul. Some parts of me would rise again with no effort. Others needed more attention, more care, more patience. Some dreams were seasonal. Some truths were slow-growing.
And in tuning to the frequency of the land, I began to hear my own.
Not just my thoughts.
My rhythm.
I realized I wasn’t a ruler of nature. I wasn’t separate from her.
I was nature.
A living, breathing ecosystem with my own seasons of shedding, blooming, composting, and rest.
That awareness began changing everything.
At home, we stopped using alarms.
We haven’t used them in over a decade.
We rise in rhythm with our bodies. We eat when hunger speaks, not the clock.
Our lives have pattern—but not pressure.
Flow—but not force.
Structure—but not subjugation.
It’s not about chaos.
It’s about creating conditions of trust—trusting the body, the moment, the pulse of life itself.
Even my work shifted. I began noticing that my most aligned creativity came in cycles—often with the waxing moon or during seasonal thresholds like equinoxes.
I learned to schedule my life around my energy, not just expectations.
There were seasons for launch, and seasons for lull.
And when I listened, things didn’t fall apart—they deepened.
And now, as I enter my Crone season—this era of deep wisdom and unshakable clarity—I feel more in rhythm than ever. There’s no rush. No hustle. No performative bloom.
There is presence.
There is tending.
There is truth.
I no longer ask myself if I’m on time.
I ask, “Am I in rhythm?”
Because this body I live in?
This land I live on?
This life I’m building?
It’s not mechanical.
It’s natural.
And nature never rushes.
Ready to Live in Rhythm, Not Reaction?
If this article stirred something ancient and true in you…
If you’re remembering that you, too, are an ecosystem…
That you are not behind…
That your liberation has a rhythm…
Then this is your invitation to walk deeper with us.
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The Four Seasons as a Map for Our Becoming
A gentle reminder:
You are allowed to be in winter while others are in bloom.
You are allowed to pause without explanation.
You are allowed to grow slow and still be sacred.
Collective Liberation Requires Seasonal Awareness
Movements burn out when we forget to honor the season.
Liberation is not linear—it is cyclical. And yet, so many of our organizing spaces mimic the very systems we seek to dismantle:
We glorify exhaustion.
We demand consistency over capacity.
We build without breaks.
We shame pause. We fear silence.
But the earth doesn’t bloom year-round.
She doesn't protest every day.
She doesn't stretch toward the sun without first burrowing into the dark.
So why should our movements?
If our organizing doesn’t allow for retreat…
If our communities cannot rest…
If our self-worth is still tied to what we produce…
Then we’re replicating the very systems we’re trying to dismantle.
Nature-centered activism says:
Let us build in waves—not in constant fire.
Let us protest and rest—not just respond.
Let us lead and listen—not just speak.
Let us bloom and compost—not just launch and sustain.
This isn’t softness for softness’ sake.
This is strategy.
This is sustainability.
This is sacred.
Because when we honor the season of a movement—when we listen for the cycles—we protect its heart.
We make space for new leaders to rise, old ideas to shed, grief to metabolize, and seeds to be planted with care.
How Rhythm-Based Liberation Dismantles Supremacy Culture
Supremacy culture thrives on urgency, overwork, and control.
It tells us:
Move now or be left behind.
You must earn your worth.
If you’re not producing, you’re failing.
Rhythmic organizing dismantles that by centering:
Timing over tempo
Depth over domination
Sacred pauses over performative momentum
Here’s how it disrupts each of the 15 pillars of supremacy culture:
Pillar Rhythm-Based Liberation Disrupts By…
Urgency Isn’t the Enemy—Disconnection Is
Let me be clear:
I’m not saying that the work doesn’t matter.
I’m not saying we don’t need to move quickly sometimes.
I’m not saying that urgency never has a place.
Some things are urgent.
📣 The housing crisis is urgent.
📣 The attack on trans rights is urgent.
📣 The climate crisis is urgent.
📣 Liberation is urgent.
But what I am saying is this:
Urgency alone cannot be the engine.
We must learn to tell the difference between urgency that’s aligned and urgency that’s extractive.
Because when we move from panic, fear, or performative timelines—we risk replicating the very systems we’re trying to dismantle.
Urgency without discernment burns people out.
It creates martyrdom culture.
It confuses movement with momentum.
It pushes people beyond their capacity and calls it commitment.
But prioritization? That’s different.
Prioritization says: “This matters. Let’s move with clarity, not chaos.”
This shift invites:
Strategic action, not just reaction.
Community accountability, not personal depletion.
Sacred pacing, not capitalist grind.
Examples: Urgency vs. Prioritization in Practice
Urgency Says… Prioritization Says…
“We have to do this now, even if we’re not ready.” “This is important—let’s prepare wisely and move swiftly.”
“If we stop, we’ll fall behind.” “Rest is part of the work—we’ll return rooted and ready.”
“Just say yes—we’ll figure it out later.” “Let’s discern if this aligns with our capacity and mission.”
“If I don’t show up, I’m letting everyone down.” “My boundaries are an offering—I show up fully when I’m resourced.”
I am not saying don’t act.
I am saying:
Act with integrity. Act in rhythm. Act in a way that allows you to still be here tomorrow.
Because a movement that eats its people isn’t a movement—it’s a machine.
And we are not machines.
We are ecosystems.
We are sacred.
We are sustainable when we move in rhythm with breath, land, spirit, and one another.
Ritual: Align with Your Current Season
Find a quiet place. Breathe with the earth.
Ask yourself:
What season am I in right now—spiritually, emotionally, creatively?
Where do I need to let something rest?
Where am I being called to rise?
Journal or voice-note what arises.
Then whisper:
“I trust the season I’m in. I honor the pace of the earth inside me.”
Journal Prompts to Deepen the Practice
What does the earth teach me about rest and return?
Where in my life am I forcing a bloom before I’m rooted?
How would my life change if I moved with the rhythm of the land?
Affirmations for Seasonal Liberation
I am not meant to be constant.
I am meant to be cyclical.
I bloom when it’s time.
I rest when I must.
I am not behind—I am in rhythm.
The Earth Has Never Rushed You
You do not have to rush to be valid.
You do not have to bloom to be beautiful.
You are allowed to be underground, unseen, unfolding.
This week, may you walk with the rhythm of the trees.
May you make decisions like the moon.
May you listen to your own breath as you listen to the soil.
Because you were never meant to be a machine.
You were meant to be wild.
To be rooted.
To be free.
The Ecosystem of You
You are not a machine.
You are not meant to operate on a 24-hour productivity cycle.
You are not designed to bloom in all seasons.
You are an ecosystem.
A living, breathing, sacred system of:
Breath and blood
Spirit and soil
Ancestors and future seeds
You hold within you:
Fire to move
Water to feel
Earth to root
Air to dream
Your nervous system, your intuition, your boundaries, your desires—these are not flaws to fix.
They are feedback loops.
They are weather patterns within your internal climate.
They are how your ecosystem speaks to you.
When you override your body’s cues to rest, you drought the soil.
When you push through grief without honoring it, you flood the fields.
When you say yes out of fear, you create imbalance in the terrain.
But when you pause to listen—
When you root before you rise
When you compost before you plant
When you rest before you bloom
—you remember who you are.
You are sacred land.
You are cyclical rhythm.
You are an entire garden of becoming.
And just like the earth, you are resilient because you are rhythmic.
You are sustainable because you honor your seasons.
You are wise because you listen inward, not just outward.
The revolution will not be industrialized.
The revolution will be rooted.
And that rooting begins in the ecosystem of you.
Want to Go Deeper?
Learn how to identify and disrupt all 15 pillars of supremacy culture
—inside your body, your work, and your organizing.
📘 Download the eBook:
🛠️ Dismantling Supremacy Culture: Understanding and Overcoming Its 15 Pillars
In solidarity and liberation
Desireé B. Stephens
Educator | Counselor | Community Builder
Founder, Make Shi(f)t Happen
The gift of your love for humanity, for all of life, through the portal of carefully chosen, soul expanding words, is transformative. Thank you. 💗