To truly know a place—especially a place that’s by the water—you must experience it through a full lunar cycle.
On a daily basis, the tides rise and fall, peaking twice in height and depth. This pattern is mirrored across a lunar month.
As the moon approaches its conjunction with the Sun for New Moon and its opposition with the Sun for a Full Moon, the high tides get higher and the low tides get lower. These are the spring tides.
In between, the variance between high and low tides lessens; the peaks are not as extreme.
By observing a place through its daily and monthly tidal cycles, you begin to understand its rhythms:
When the action hits and when it recedes. When its bustling and when its quiet. When things come with ease and when you may have to work harder.
People are the same way.
Circadian Swells and Lunar Lows
Like the ocean, we follow a daily and monthly rhythm. Within each container of time, we cycle between high and low tide in energy, emotion, and capacity.
Like the oceans, we follow a circadian rhythm and a monthly rhythm.
At high tide, our energy is flowing. We launch easily. Our metaphorical boats glide onto the water and out of the harbor with little resistance. We can easily surf the waves of distraction and emotion that inevitably arise; they feel playful rather than destabilizing. The right people and projects just seem to come to us at the just right time.
Things move with ease. We move with ease. We’re in flow.
At low tide, everything changes. To get the boat onto the water, you must drag it across the sand and rocks or carry it overhead. Just getting to the starting line depletes you. Everything feels like it’s moving away from you. No matter how fast you row, you can’t catch it.
At low tide, our crevices are exposed. Every rock, every channel, every crack in the system becomes visible.
At low tide, there’s more friction. Everything feels harder.
The Magic of Low Tide
Just like low tide at the beach offers its own magic and beauty, so do the low tides of people.
When our energy dips and we are forced to slow down, we can see what is normally submerged beneath the ease of flow. We see the rocks beneath the surface: the triggers, patterns, and systems that break under pressure, the sources of dysregulation, the habitual patterning that causes the waves to break.
With that awareness, we’re better equipped to navigate when the tide rises again. Rowing at high tide, we can steer clear of that rock that will damage the bottom of the boat.
You Are a Part of Nature
Just like the oceans, you have multiple high and low tides throughout the day and throughout a month.
We often look at our “low tide” moments as “problems:” a flaw in our character or conditioning, that we need to fix.
When the ocean is at low tide, you don’t try to fix it. You wait it out, explore the landscape that is normally hidden, and trust that the tide will eventually rise again.
The same is true for you.
Your low tide moments aren’t a problem to be fixed. They are a part of your natural rhythm; a reminder that you are not a machine, but a part of great nature.
[…] You’ve lost your rhythm. […]