Life Lived in Rhythm with Natures Seasons.

A great deal of our lives is made up of tasks. The little details and habits of daily life, carried out with a sense of pleasure and beauty, can be just as important to us as the tea ceremony is to the Japanese. The way you handle the details of a meal or a bath, of paying your bills or doing your exercises, can turn something ordinary and mundane into something quite extraordinary.
Alexandra Stoddard, author of Living a Beautiful Life

Most of us spend ninety-five percent of our money and effort on five percent of our lives, anniversaries, holidays, and other special occasions. We view completed work as a requirement to be able to rest and play. We work hard to afford that annual vacation, and spend our savings and more on gifts opened all on a single day, once a year.

What might it look like to live every day as equally important and beautiful as those random special occasions?

What if living a beautiful life was more about seeing the beauty and value of the ninety-five percent of our lives?

What if we opted to spend our lives living well on purpose, every single day?

As a young, newlywed, I was very much in the romantic stages of homemaking, reading all the magazines and books on home decorating, and cooking. Soaking in all the best organizational tips and tricks for making a beautiful home. But get this, it turns out making a beautiful home, does not necessarily equate to making a beautiful life. And eventually, the novelty of playing house wears off. While there is nothing wrong with having a beautifully decorated home, that isn’t what matters most.

Last year I read Myquillyn Smith’s newest book, Welcome Home, adding it to my list of favorite books on creating a beautiful home, and a home that works with your beautiful life. One of my favorite things about this book is how it is divided into seasons. This year I read, Jennifer Dukes Lee’s book Growing Slow, and while not a home decor book, it was a book that inspires us to live in rhythm with seasons. Before I knew it, my mind was spending all sorts of time reflecting on a life lived in rhythm with nature’s seasons.

Structure and organization could be my love language, except I don’t believe it’s an actual category of its own in any professional setting. When I find a routine that works well, I am happy, and if we could just freeze life and allow that routine to continue unchanged, life would be good. Except, life is forever changing. We have the natural changing of seasons, but we also have seasons in parenting that are constantly changing as children grow; we have school year and summer, we have career changes, and moves. It feels impossible to find one rhythm or routine that works and never requires adjustments. If you have found otherwise I would love to hear from you, please and thank you.

August was a hard month with lots of transition, and it’s led me to spend time reflecting on what it takes to live this one beautiful life we have well, on how to handle change and transition. In that process, I’ve landed on some questions, what if, rather than fight change that naturally occurs, we viewed it as an opportunity and looked forward with anticipation to embracing change with each season?

What if I purposefully set out to live in rhythm with nature-changing seasons?

What if, as I reset my home for fall, I also reset my heart, rhythms, and routines to embrace the gifts of the fall season? Changing how I cook to incorporate all the flavors of fall, embracing the beauty and playfulness of fall activities, and resetting my heart and mind to the comfort and cozy spirit of fall.

Will you join me on a journey of discovery, as together we reflect on what it might look like to live well on purpose a life in rhythm with nature’s seasons?

While I will occasionally write about living well throughout the seasons on the blog, beginning this month, the first full week in September, I will be sending out a monthly newsletter to all my blog subscribers. Are you a subscriber?

The newsletter titled Random Reflections Throughout the Seasons will provide additional reflections and resources to help us live well in rhythm with nature’s seasons. It will include something to reflect on, recommendations for podcasts and/or books, and a bonus downloadable resource. So, if you aren’t already subscribed to Random Reflection, go ahead and click here to sign-up for free. As a subscriber, you will receive notifications whenever there is a new blog post, as well as the new monthly newsletter delivered directly to your inbox.