Tuesday 12 June 2018


Seasonal Affective Flux

      
        “I’ll lock the vagrant winter out and bolt my wandering in.” 
                                         – Joni Mitchell, “Urge for Going”

‘Tis the season of increasing darkness. Bins of pumpkins have popped up in No Frills parking lots. The sweet vegetable links Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en: one to honour the fecundity of earth, one to contain (and market!) the bottomless, beckoning unknown of the Beyond. Soon the madness and disorientation of adjusting our clocks will once again challenge our bio-rhythms.

Manic Depression. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Bipolar Affect. Moody Judy. The labels seem more affirming and nuanced as society slowly develops a deeper appreciation of consciousness. Stories of madness become easier to share. Survivors of our health systems are finding their voices and affirming their dignity.

Tooker Gomberg, a victim of our health system, championed Bike Lanes on Bloor, for now a partial reality. Treating heroin addiction was the subject of the very mainstream CBC call-in show “Cross-Country Checkup” as it kicked off October; the voices of compassion were overwhelming.

Busy not coping

So much of Western culture exalts action, flash, living fast at the expense of appreciating the unseen or the overlooked (your child’s drawing?). Orientation to the light and the visible can make the flux of seasons—and moods—seem like a threat instead of an opportunity.

A ten-year old family friend plans to be Donald Trump on Hallowe’en, a sharp comment on the horrors that walk the planet. The blood and gore that colour so much of Hallowe’en are poor stand-ins for our collective fear of a nasty end to our species. What costume can convey the threats of climate change?

Hidden power

Is there any other season as challenging? What other time of year physically demands humility in the face of nature’s strange power (misty, drizzly, cold) or calls to mind our dependence on each other (street encounters shortening with the dwindling of temperature)? As October tips Toronto further away from the sun you shouldn’t be surprised to find yourself feeling off-balance.

The power of the hidden can certainly be destructive if its ways are not understood and respected. The spirit of the season will be oppressive unless we see in it the invitation to wonder at our duality: we are knowing and foolish, fearful and wild, active and passive, awake and asleep.

Hibernation, the long wait for rebirth, suggests that it’s time to be rooted and contemplative, to rejuvenate. Some folk navigate the season with medication or by physically escaping to warmer places. Our New Human City is a warmer place with healing ways for coping with our seasonal affective/emotional flux.

Rituals and community

Rituals are among the healthiest behaviours of society at large because in binding us they bring opportunities to develop compassion. Toronto’s conscious communities are bursting with awareness of our needs and with the skills to meet them. The scale of the training and support available here stretches from the intimacy of meditation to the graceful hive behaviour of Tai Chi groups.

Mildly go in this season of masks and shadow. Remember to layer. Dig what’s inside.


First published by newhumancity on October 3, 2016

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