Do you ever allow yourself to lie fallow?

— like the land after harvest, when its energies are spent?
— when you know a growth spurt cannot be sustained and it’s time to rest, recover and regenerate?

Fallow ground is land that has been ploughed and tilled but not seeded or planted. Letting the land rest breaks the cycle of pests and allows the soil to replenish its nutrients. Fallowing the soil also allows essential minerals to rise up from deep below.

Forcing the soil to keep producing will deplete its capacity.

We live in a society that places great emphasis on productivity: ceaseless activity to produce more and more to meet consumer demands or to feed greed.

Nature is not like this.

Nature has her seasons and allows for time off.

In Te Ao Māori, the lunar month of Haratua is the last of the year. In Haratua once the crops are stored everything naturally quietens down. This year Haratua ended on June 10.

In European farming, the furrowed land lies idle after harvest, open to the elements. Ice, snow, rain, hail, wind, and sun all play their part in reconstituting the soil. Dead matter breaks down. Unseen micro-organisms work beneath the surface, regenerating the biofield.

Matariki departs

Some time in Haratua, Marariki the food bringer drops below the horizon and the Māori year comes to a standstill.

In the month before the turning of the sun at winter solstice, European farmers would attend to quiet indoor tasks such as mending ploughs, tending the sheltering cattle, fixing whatever was broken, as well as creative activities such as weaving, knitting, carving, and storytelling. Fallow time is composting time. {See Dancing with the Seasons chapter 4, to read more about this.]

Humans need to lie fallow too

You too may be called to fold into fallow at any time. Such a call may come to a stressed worker who is taking care of others while she herself comes to the brink of burnout. It may come to people like my friends who were exhausted after selling their house and rested at a relative’s place, their belongings safely in storage, while they waited for their new home to be ready.

Such times are about surrender, not productivity.

My own fallow time

Since selling my bach I am not moving into a new home; I remain in my city apartment. Here I have slowed down, folding in to assimilate grief and reorient to the mystery of whatever new life may emerge — in its own time.

It’s not easy, but it’s the only way. This newsletter has lain fallow since I wrote the first draft ten days ago, and could only be picked up now because I am on retreat and feeling some signs of regeneration. Sleeping and dreaming have begun to regenerate my inner field.

Gift yourself this

Fallow can feel like inertness, a lack. This is when we need to accept nature’s teaching, that rest is part of the rhythm of life. Without it, we become brittle and can easily snap. By allowing ourselves to fold into fallow, we sleep like the earth and surrender into the Mother for a season of new growth.

Blessings to you, as you ease into the rhythm of the seasons and listen to the call to nature’s wisdom.

Juliet

Like the soil, mind is fertilized while it lies fallow, until a new burst of bloom ensues.

—John Dewey, US Philosopher

This blog is an excerpt from my Seasons Newsletter. To receive the Seasons Newsletter and a free gift, you may sign up on the Home page of this website. The Newsletter also has a special winter offer for subscribers.