Chicago, it’s July and summer has arrived with lots of Sun at the onset of this month. The summer sun’s intensity and its rays are blinding white. Yet, by the droves, people come out and converge onto plazas, parks, the lakefront, and any outdoor space that they may soak up that sun and the elements. The craving for sunshine, air, water, and parks is so palpable and so many in this city, alone, experience what feels like a giant magnet drawing us to the sun and how Good it makes us all feel to be out in the elements.
After those long winter months and the partial hibernation due to the harsh bitter cold temperatures limiting outside time, the sun’s warmth visits the northern hemisphere again. The sun’s fire is bold and generously bathes us in its golden light. It stirs up the dreams that laid dormant over the winter months, sparks the imagination, and energizes us in its creation. Just like the Life force we witness in nature when all is in bloom, so are we. The fire in Life forces cannot be underestimated to assist in manifesting form.
In the milder seasons, when the winds are kinder upon our physical forms, choosing to sit outside with a breeze can aide in creating gaps of both time and space, and accessing our natural state of Being with ease. For many of us, memories within our childhoods lend distinct impressions of just how air altered our state of being. Often, we could literally feel a “high” flow through us as we felt the “wind in our hair”. Those imprints stayed with us and in the memories of running, biking, climbing to higher heights on hills, in trees, on rocks, jumping, spinning, swinging, sliding and so many more moments that included the powerful element of air. It speaks to our cellular memories of moving and flying freely devoid of form.
The ancient mystery of water is intrinsically connected with the creation of the human body, It’s healing properties have been closely connected with rituals and ceremonies that encompass the range of our life span from birth to death. We are born in water and in the end, for many, our bodies are prepared to cross over and washed in water once again. Water is purifying like fire only gentler. In the grace of water, we may experience its gentle caress yet, powerful, even at times harsh, and within each we learn how to surrender. We find capacities within us by swimming, floating, flowing and an opportunity to feel weightlessness. Water wisdom reveals itself in our physical bodies, our emotional bodies, in the fluidity or cascades of thought in our minds, and in the movement of our soul.
Deeply rooted, entangled, are we with our mother earth. The foundation, the rock, the strength, the core center of this world’s hearth and heart. Its trees and plant life are like to the lungs of our own organism. It’s streams and rivers are like to the very veins that run through our bodies with the Life force that sustains us. Of all beautiful the creations, all the flora and fauna that play out their parts in the most miraculous ways, that serve us, and impart their wisdom upon us, our dear mother earth is a mantle of goodness for us all. It is of pure Love of that which we, too, are created from.
Coming into alignment, not only connected with, but in conjunction with the elemental forces that we may intentionally draw from every day, as part of our very existence, fosters an awareness. The elemental world will provide for us an open door that leads us into a deeper understanding of Presence in the moment. It gifts us with a grounding and an opportunity to sink, and sync into its rejuvenating power. It is a dose of vitality that our modern-day nutrition-ism attempts to place into our multi vitamins only there’s no co-pays, no deductibles, no out-of-pockets, no online, no over-the-counters, or retail purchases of any kind. The four elements, fire, air, water, and earth are Free to us all.
