Cycles

People generally like nice, precise, straight lines. We tend to think in lines. Time lines, races, stories, tests – all have a beginning, a middle, and an end. When we get to the end, we feel satisfied (who really likes cliff-hangers?) and ready to move on.

Not everyone thinks this way. In Taoism, cycles are part of growth, just as the sun and moon cycle or the seasons turn, there are times of active growing and times of rest and waiting. In Buddhism, cycles of death and rebirth may or may not be positive or growth-oriented. It is ignorance that leads to suffering and the kind of wanting that causes negative cycles. The Christian Bible also speaks of times and cycles:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time

-Ecclesiastes 3

This week we will be dealing with two aspects of cycles – natural cycles and negative spirals

"The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place."
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run with the Wolves)