Lesson Two: Attuning To Natural Cycles

There are ways to further attune yourself to these cycles we discussed in

Lesson One,

to make you even more aware of the natural patterns to your day. Which

brings us to...

Exercise Two: Attuning to Natural Cycles

Each morning when you awake, take a moment to notice the sunrise or

the early morning sun (if you don't get up early enough to catch the

transition

from night to day). Stand in front of your window (or outside, if

your living

situation allows it) and simply experience the sunlight. Take a

moment and

watch how the light looks different on the world around you than it

does in the

afternoon. If you're up early enough to watch the sunrise, pay

attention to the

colors, to the different hues that are painted across the clouds. No

two sunrises

are the same. Each morning, you'll be blessed with a special moment

alone with

nature's majesty.

As you stand there, feel the sunlight on your skin. Imagine that

your body is

transparent, that the light shines within you, slowly filling your

being. Visualize

the sun's energy slowly raising your own energy level, recharging

you the same

way a hot shower does. When you're done connecting to the morning,

take a

moment and thank the sun for rising, for bringing light and life to

your day. It

can be a simple sentence such as, "Thank you sun, for rising and

beginning a

new day," or as elaborate as reciting a poem that you've written for

the

occasion.

At sunset (or at night) take a moment and do the same thing with the

night sky.

Take a moment and look at the stars; see if you can feel the

moonlight and

starlight the same way you felt the room around you in the example

from Lesson

One. Pull this energy within you, adding it to the sunlight you

pulled in at dawn.

When you're done, once again give thanks, anyway that you feel moved

to.

This exercise should be done on a continual basis. Ideally, you

should do it

each day, but that isn't always possible. Do your best, give

yourself the leeway

to forget or run out of time. You shouldn't force yourself to do

this exercise -

just strive to do it as often as you can. Eventually, you'll find

that your days go

better when you complete this exercise than when you don't.

So what in the world does welcoming each day and night do for us?

Subconsciously,

those of us who are on any kind of learning path - whether we're studying

for school,

doing research in the lab, or simply trying to understand our own lives -

are constantly

looking for ways to comprehend the material in front of us. On a

spiritual path, we try to

understand ourselves and the way we interact with life. As Pagans, we

take that a step

farther and seek to understand how we connect with the world around us

and the cycles

that are present in Nature.

Exercise Two has three basic purposes, each unique and individually

important.

First of all, it gives you a reference to understand the cycles of your

day. This may not

seem too important until you think back to "Exercise One: Learning To

Listen." We

weren't aware of the natural world around us because we didn't stop to

look at it. By

taking a few moments to simply sit and observe, we began to develop a

frame of reference

to connect with nature. By taking a few moments to honor the day and the

night, you

begin to bring order to your day. Your subconscious mind, instead of

running around

tired all day, coming home and vegetating in front of the television, and

suddenly being

thrust into bed, now has a regular division to its day. You'll find that

your stress level

should slowly and naturally drop, that you become more focused on the

tasks before you,

and that you have more energy to complete them with.

The second reason this exercise is important is because it begins to

connect you to the

larger cycles of the natural world. As we'll explore later in this guide,

both the moon and

sun have very distinct cycles, both physically and on an energy level.

Rather than being

pulled by these cycles, you'll notice them and get in synch with them.

When was the last

time you instinctively knew when the moon was new? When was the last time

that you

thought, "You know, the flowers should be blooming any day now?" simply

because you

knew it was time for them to do so? Both the sun and moon have a

multitude of subtle

influences on our lives. We may get cranky when the hours of daylight

start to shorten or

feel energized on the full moon. Rather than simply stumbling into these

patterns, by

regularly observing them we begin to understand them and make them a part

of our lives.

The third reason we do this exercise is simply to begin changing our

frame of mind. The

path I teach isn't one where we expect to grow simply because we deserve

it. Rather, we

begin to seek our natural place in the world, working with the rhythms of

life rather than

against them. Have you noticed that we ended the first two exercises by

giving thanks?

It's something that will reoccur in every exercise in this guide.

Sometimes we will simply

thank the world around us for a blessed experience. Occasionally, we will

simply stop and

thank ourselves for taking the steps to reach a certain point in our

personal growth. To

properly understand this guide, you must move beyond the mindset that

we're separate

from the natural cycles around us. By giving thanks, we instinctively

assume that we are

receiving something from nature - which we are. By looking at our lives

as receiving a

multitude of blessings, we begin to understand that we aren't taking from

the world, but

that we are equals in life. Don't believe me? Try living without sunlight

or oxygen. Try

living without water. The rivers, the trees, the sky, and the sun can

continue on without

us, but we cannot continue on without them. And you will slowly begin to

understand the

inherent blessings in developing a joy in simply living. As we begin to

understand that we

are in an equal partnership with life, instead of simply subduing it to

our will, we begin to

perceive that we are part of a larger, interconnected web of existence.

This might not seem

important now, but later on in this course, we'll look at this web in

greater detail and learn

how to continue your studies from the parallels you find in the natural

world around you.

There's an ancient belief that Witches don't find their power by

commanding nature -

those that truly find the magick on this path do so by developing a

partnership, a

relationship, and a friendship with the natural world around them. We'll

look at this in

depth a bit later on, but by welcoming the day and night on a regular

basis, you can begin

to embrace this perspective now - which will benefit you greatly later on

in this guide.

The First Cycle course is written by Graelan Wintertide

and is © 1999 All Rights Reserved