Awakening to the Cycles of LIfe

Lifecycle Living: The Next Phase of Becoming

Posted by Jen Collins | Jun 13, 2019 | Hot News, June 2019 |

By Jen Collins, Assistant Director, Lifeways

Over the past two years, Sacred Fire Community Lifeways has brought 12 Life Cycle Living presentations to the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Thank you to all who have attended and contributed so many thoughtful ideas infused with energy and heart! What you have given us is rich and full of life.

Soon our team will use all this juicy data to sift, sort, debate and dream into a 5-YEAR plan for new Lifeways offerings! If you came to a Life Cycle Living presentation, you know that re-discovering this experiential way of living in alignment with the cycles of nature and human life can be an exciting journey of learning.

We will update you on how our meetings go and how we intend to see this vision through for generations to come. Wish us luck and good planning!!

Longing for Something Lost

Posted by Britt Espinosa | Jun 24, 2018 | Event Landing Page, June 2018 |

I found the Life Cycle Living workshop to be as informative as it was deeply emotional. I felt a strong resonance and yearning for ‘village life’—for a deeply supportive community.

In listening to and learning about how each stage of life contains a particular gift for community as well as a job of personal growth, I felt some pain and sadness at how I had moved in my own life, as a father and young man, without proper guidance to navigate that part of my life. This discovery awakened a need to grieve and let go of old sadness and shame, and to claim a deeper sense of purpose in my work and a stronger connection with my children, who are now young adults.

A Circle Within a Circle: Human Life and Community

Posted by Around the Fire Editor | May 8, 2018 | Event Landing Page, Fire Stories, June 2019, Social Media post |

During my recent experience of Sacred Fire’s Life Cycle Living program, ably facilitated by Prema Sheerin and Lisa Lichtig, I was introduced to the natural flow of human life through eight important stages. It was compelling to see how each stage organically feeds into the next, and how each has its particular work, gifts, and associated emotions. It felt good to begin to understand these stages and to see with fresh eyes how I may have moved or failed to move naturally through each of them. I saw the possibility of revisiting each stage, fully grieving opportunities that had been missed, honoring the lessons that had been learned, and claiming healing forward movement. In particular, I saw the beauty of looking at life as a circle rather than as a line, recognizing how elders are meant to contribute their earned wisdom to the youngest members of a community.

All of us present expressed our ideas and feelings and there was room for it all: excitement, grief and hope. Most of all, we came away with a knowing that we cannot do this alone. It is the connecting warmth of the fire, the community of people and the divine natural world that will gracefully carry us through these beautiful cycles of life.

Maturing Gracefully and with Meaning

Posted by Bill Sutton | May 1, 2018 | Event Landing Page, Life Cycle Living, May 2018 |

As I witness my own mother aging, my heart longs for something that our modern culture doesn’t seem to offer: a clear way to mature gracefully, mature with meaning, and come of age in different stages of life with support of community.

I find myself wondering a few things:

Who will take care of me when I’m a senior (and will they like it)?
What is my role in this stage of my life in relation to the old and the young around me (and to my family and community, in general)?
What qualities of eldership have been traditionally valued by community, and how can I become someone who cultivates those qualities as I age?

These questions about the stages of life are the focus of Life Cycle Living.

Tuning in to Natural Cycles

Posted by Around the Fire Editor | Apr 19, 2018 | Event Landing Page, Fire Stories |

As I ponder my experience of attending Life Cycle Living (LCL) a month ago, I am surprised by a new quiet in me. I feel that I let go of some of the internal voice that wants to tell me “gotta get to the next stage in life.” I think there was a subtle yet profound transformation with this; the cultural linear thinking seems to have lightened somewhat. I have been living in a rural setting for five years now, having spent most of my life in the city. As a result, I experience the natural cycles much more now and I am in tears for how the LCL exploration affirmed this knowing in me.

Several insights are worth sharing. I had trauma in my early life for which I have done much healing work, but during this community dialogue, I deepened my compassion for my younger self. Also, as I look at my young adult sons, I now feel more empowered to let go of concern for them and to allow them to be in the “work” of that stage of life. Further, as an early childhood educator with many degrees and years of experience, I feel validated for my work, which is to preserve the innocence of infants and young children, allowing them to fully be in their respective stages of life. That is the greatest contribution I can make for them.

Finally, as an older adult I now ask myself: Am I fully living into this current stage of my life? So I am pondering what is it to be an elder, and that is a wonderful thing to do in community also. My thanks go to the facilitators, Larry Messerman and Jessica De la O. I felt that they were dwelling in the questions of the workshop for themselves. They brought this insight as well as a deep listening.

Displays on page: Awakening to the Cycles of LIfe

Lifecycle Living: The Next Phase of Becoming

Longing for Something Lost

Maturing Gracefully and with Meaning

Tuning in to Natural Cycles

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