Life Cycles

There is a natural rhythm in life that applies itself to anything and everything. We see it in the seasons and their effect upon animals, plants and people - an opening and closing cycle that repeats itself endlessly. Things clench up against an environment tat threatens. In the case of a tree it is the clipping of autumn leaves at the first heavy frost; in the case of a nation it is the tightening of borders against foreigners. Strange isn't it! That the beauty of autumnal colours can be related to the cost of a visa to get into Belarus.

A further analogy arises when we think about the opening phase of any dynamic process. The unclenching that feels more relaxing, in fact it is just that, a relaxation of tightness. It can be tightness of mind, when belief and opinion are staunch and become more liberal; it can be the relaxing of muscles, including the facial ones that move from a frown to a smile; it can be emotional too: from mistrust to trust. These very different forms of expression are all similar in essence, shall we say essentially the same principle - opening up.

We can perhaps put a measure of degree on this opening up - shall we say two aspects that feel different because they are different in degree. So to be clear: though essentially similar they differ in degree. When opening is closer to clenching, then it is the first stage. However when one is already quite relaxed and yet willing to go further - to relax to an even greater degree so that openness is dearer to trust - then we have the second stage. This leads us on and on to a point of satisfaction and fullness.

The fourth phase comes when the ripeness of satisfaction is just beginning to pall. Enough's enough! Beyond enough is too much - or indeed in a healthy system to prevent that stage of over-satisfaction, it is time for a major change. Endings are prerequisite of new beginnings. If we avoid or delay the need to wrap things up and move on, then what was ripe and succulent, degenerates into something unpleasantly past its best - through one of two processes: either the rottenness of decay or the morbidity of stagnation. Life is change and we must move on.

These first four stages form a repeating cycle, which can in fact feel repetitive (and boring) rather than rhythmic and comforting. A lot depends upon whether we have awareness of deeper currents that are at play. Even though life has its cycles, there is another force that operates. This applies as much to a person individually as it does to a tree or a country and is to do with the basic purpose of its life. This purpose is what motivates a living being towards the horizon of its best view of itself: the tree "wants" to be bigger and stronger as much as a person wants to grow in influence and reach, as too does a nation. Without understanding this force, you won't be able to penetrate the deeper reasons that explain something's or someone's behaviour.
Nothing exists in a vacuum, all things on earth - and even further afield - are connected. We study individual things separately in order to simplify and reduce the task of comprehension, but really everything has to be understood in relationship. And indeed there's the rub. Things, people, systems, companies, countries and tides of change are all rubbing up against each other and we all know what happens when we rub don't we! Friction. In social terms friction is related to emotional tension and the subsequent release of irritation through anger and fiery words that provoke retaliation and aggressive, possibly war-like, dangerous behaviour. It will always be so, it is in the very nature of life to rub up against others whose motivation substantially differs from our own - and incidentally by so doing defines ours more clearly. We each have to find a way to ease the friction, or the resultant disharmony will inflame.

So in summary the cycles that operate do so in the context of an underlying motivating force that inevitably clashes with the strong purposes of others, and we all need to act gently when this happens to avoid conflict.

The final stage of the life of anything - any system or any person - is death. We are born to die. We begin things that must end one day. How we deal with death and its absolute certainty says so much about the quality of life that leads us towards it. There are so many aspects of a normal life in which something ends - and this often feels like death - so how do we deal with it? There is grief, emptiness, the sense of losing something so essential that without it life seems to lack meaning. And yet these feelings, though deep, are not the essence because in the end it is death that reveals the mystery of life, and the final letting go of anything reveals the deepest treasures of knowledge and satisfaction. Learning how to surrender is the final lesson that life offers.

All these phases of life - anything that changes - are explained by these 7 primary words: No, Hello, Thanks, Bye, Please, Sorry, Yes. To learn more, please go to our website.

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