Recently, we have had to cut down four trees that died in a rare freeze Southern California experienced this winter. I was bemoaning their loss and the many losses I’ve experienced this year. My dear husband tried to comfort me by reminding me that this is a death year. Since the fall of last year—he says from harvest to harvest are the true years just as the ancients celebrated—many deaths have occurred. The fires last fall that threatened our beloved Ojai Valley. The numerous patients that called for comfort after losing loved ones. And in January my beloved dog died of a rare and ravishing cancer. That same day I lost a friend to a pulmonary embolism. Six days later I was moved to call my mother and that moment her dog, the sister to mine, died in her lap.

I have always believed that birth is preceded by death. Most deaths are symbolic, like the death of childhood to become an adolescent. My dear grandmother died shortly after holding my premature son and after burying her, my baby was released from the NICU. When Genesis Gold® was birthed, I midwifed a dear patient through the veil. He was the one who helped me get my product manufactured and then a week after I placed the first bottle in his hands, he died. My husband reminded me that while I wanted my first book to be published in the spring, it could not be born in a death year. LoveDance will be released this fall…the beginning of a seven year birth cycle.

It makes sense that the earth would renew herself every seven years. Wasn’t it an ancient tradition to let the fields lay fallow on the seventh year? So perhaps now is the time for rest, renewal, recovery. Let us look forward to for a new beginning this fall when we break free from the chrysalis and become butterflies.