Cycles

“Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to the same mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.”
–Albert Einstein (German-born American Physicist and, in 1921, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1879-1955)

My next full-length book will be entitled Sacred Cycles. I am in no doubt that an essential key to healing, and to finding and following the meaning and purpose of our lives, is learning to understand the cycles at play in our lives, relationships and in society as a whole is.

You may want to achieve some aim, you might want to follow the advice of a motivational speaker, but if your planets are not correctly, unless this is the right time in your life to follow through, chances are that you will be disheartened rather than being enlivened by the attempt.

All things experience cycles. Some are obvious: the rotating earth causes day and night; our moon generates the ebb and flow of the tides and the seasons’ change. Our energy levels rise and fall in concert with the cycles of the Universe. The geniuses who created homeopathy and Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine all understood the profound importance of watching when symptoms appeared or changed. It is extremely useful to get in the habit of paying close attention to your energy and noticing when it is going up or down. We want to harmonize with the powerful cycles of the Universe, and it is always much easier to surf the crests of the waves than to try and swim against them.

During periods of low energy, our natural tendency is to try and use some artificial energy booster: a cup of coffee, a soda or a candy bar. Unfortunately, that approach ultimately leaves you more exhausted. It is usually better to be aware of the low energy point and use the time to take a short break and to do get up and stretch, if possible go outside and drink some fresh water. If you ignore your body’s needs for movement, breaks and sleep, it is inevitable that you will not be able t function at your best, and your productivity in all areas  of you life will plummet.

The economist Edward R. Dewey was prompted to initiate a life-long study of cycles as he pondered the depredation of the Great Depression that began in 1929, and carried on through much of the 1930s. In 1941, Dewey established the Foundation for the Study of Cycles now based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. (There are three short but interesting free downloads on their website  and some extraordinary lists of cycles, many of which have been confirmed over time.).

Over the years the work has branched out in kinds of different directions. There is more and more evidence that many of the major cycles that dominate our bodies, minds, relationships, society and the economy, are largely predictable.

I have known some people who strongly resisted the idea of cycles. It seems to contradict the notion of free will to learn that your life and indeed the whole universe vibrates in a series of regular and predictable rhythms caused by forces that may be unknown and uncontrollable. In fact if you can understand the nature of these cycles you will develop a remarkable degree of personal mastery.

I’m going to spend some time in the coming months explaining how an understanding of the cycles at work in your own life can dramatically improve your health and your sense of control.

“In all things there is a law of cycles.”
— Publius Cornelius Tacitus (Roman Historian, Writer, Orator and Public Official, A.D.56-c.120)