Mother Earth is the greatest schoolhouse we will ever have in this life, if we would but learn to listen to her.

I am always fascinated by the ancient Mayans, who observed and charted the movement of the planets and stars through the heavens and the winds and waters across the land more than any other civilization on earth, drawing knowledge and wisdom from the ways in which all things interact.

When you study the Mayan codices that survived the conquistadores or work with contemporary Mayan healers, you discover how thoroughly they understood that earth is our first teacher and ultimate task master and how they used the knowledge and wisdom she taught them to chart their course through life. They were able to predict with remarkable accuracy not only the events of their own times but also earth changes for hundreds of years into the future. I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand how well they understood the energies of nature and the nature of human beings in ways that our modern psychology is only beginning to glean, and to participate in some of the elaborate initiations they created to teach their young how to live in harmony with their world. What a remarkable way to experience life!

Modern civilizations have largely lost and given up our observation and intuitive understanding of Mother Earth. We’ve replaced them with an analytical paradigm we call science, which we rely on to tell us as much as we think we need to know about the workings of the world around us. In doing so, we’ve placed ourselves in a peculiar conundrum.

Consider this: all of the animals that weren’t penned-in evacuated to high ground hours in advance of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, as did the communities of aboriginal islanders. Because there wasn’t a technological ‘tsunami warning system’ in place, however, over 225,000 people in the general population remained in the coastal areas and were killed.

If you step back and witness the extraordinary lifestyles that our science and technology enable us to have much of the time and then look closely at those instances where they have failed, you realize that perhaps we ought reconsider what we’ve really given up. When we move through life with a conscious awareness of earth’s rhythms, we move into the flow of energy as it courses throughout the entire universe. That is when you have true power working with you and all of possibility is at your fingertips, as opposed to continually paddling upstream.

All things, both tangible and intangible, have a lifespan. Not even time lasts forever. I have learned to look to Mother Earth to understand how I can best organize my life and my affairs in order to have the maximum potential for success. She teaches us, actually, through her four growing seasons: spring, when the trees bud and the rains prepare the soil for the time of new growth, which is akin to preparing and planting the seeds of new ideas and new growth in your life; summer, when flowers bloom and fruit ripens on the vine, which is akin to the time for cultivating and nurturing your ideas to fruition; autumn, the time of harvest as the leaves fall back to the earth to be absorbed and transformed, akin to reaping the rewards of your labors as you weed out that which no longer serves you; and winter, when frigid temperatures send both plants and animals deep into hibernation and dreaming, in preparation for a new cycle to begin. This latter is the time for letting go, for going within to meditate and reflect on all that has happened as you dream about what comes next.

Take just a moment, if you will, and look at how well you incorporate these four seasons into your life. If you are like most of us, you likely no longer recognize a period of hibernation, even though our bio-rhythms are still programmed to do so. Globally, our cultures are such that we are constantly on the go. When we take a vacation, we usually fill it with so many things that we need another vacation just to recover. Even when we sleep, we expect to be back up to speed on everything that went on during those “lost” hours before we’ve finished our morning coffee. And then we wonder why we become so irascible and burned out?

Individually and as a culture, however, we’ve gotten pretty good at beginnings. We’ve gotten so good at them that we often fail to look at the ramifications of what we are doing; we get an idea and plunge right ahead only to discover that there were a few things that we probably should have considered from the top. Sometimes we take so long to make a new beginning that we risk losing the window of opportunity we hope it opens, but generally speaking, we humans are pretty good at beginnings.

Somewhere toward the middle, however, we begin to lose interest. We become distracted, impatient, hungry for more, newer ‘feel-good’ things. We forget the critical step of cultivating and nurturing what we’ve planted, even those parts of our lives that are most important to us. When you forget to take good care of the things you start, as if they will somehow just take care of themselves, you’ve no business feeling picked on when they fall apart.

How often do you prune and weed out that which no longer serves you, whether it is old, worn-out ideas or projects gone astray? Do you hold onto old ideas and ideologies until they strangle you? Once in a while, we make a conscious decision that something we’ve begun really isn’t for us and we take the steps to make some kind of reasonable closure. More often, however, we shove things to the back shelves of our lives once we lose interest. Then we pile up so much unfinished business that there is no room left for ourselves, let alone for anything new and truly worthwhile.

And as regards endings? Endings are something we don’t do well in our modern world. We tend to fear and regard death as if it were the most unnatural thing in the entire universe. We’ve become divorced from the concept of endings to the point that we don’t finish a great deal of what we start, with the result that we leave a trail of clutter and neglect everywhere we turn.

When you stop to look at how catastrophic the cumulative impact of this is on our world, you realize some things that we all need to change. In our rush to have more and bigger, we plunder this earth of her most important resources. We forget to take care of our infrastructures, whether they be the roads and bridges of our communities or our own bodies, until they begin to fall down around us. Our economies go through a period of growth and we think it will last forever, forgetting completely that everything in life has a beginning, a middle and an end. We don’t make provision for when the good times will wind down nor do we take the time to end things with integrity.

Do you take the time to hibernate, make the time to go within and reflect on the status of your life and of your world? Do you ever ask yourself, “Have I really accomplished what I set out to do? Did I miss the mark? What did I learn from what I’ve just been through?” The way we live our lives today is like Mother Earth going on break half way through summer then skipping autumn and winter completely in a mad dash to get back to spring. And we wonder why we are living in greater chaos and confusion today than at any other time in human history?

Spring is the beginning cycle of life when the seeds of new growth are planted. Planting seeds requires great care, for when you plant a seed, you are planting and cultivating energy so that life force will find its way toward the light and blossom, becoming a manifested reality.

As we approach the coming spring, in these waning days of winter, it would be good to have a master class with Mother Earth. Make some time now to go within and take a good look at your life, where you’ve been and where you really want to go. Make conscious decisions about what is truly important and what you need to let go. Then take responsibility for your world. Nurture with all of your being what you are holding onto, and let go of what no longer serves you in a way that does not leave clutter. Then you will really be ready to begin a new cycle of life.

Do it now, when you’ve got the energy of the entire universe working with you. All the mysteries of the universe are still there, waiting for you to discover them, just like the ancient Mayans. What an extraordinary way to experience life!

Lynn Andrews is the author of the New York Times and internationally best-selling Medicine Woman series. She is a shaman teacher who is recognized worldwide as a leader in the field of spiritual healing. She wrote extensively about her work with a chaman curandera of Mayan descent in her book, Jaguar Woman; her book Walk In Spirit is filled with earth wisdom and prayers for the seasons of life. Learn more at www.lynnandrews.com