What would your life look like if it was condensed into the span of one year, into the months and seasons of that year? What season of life are you in? What does it mean to be thrive and be productive in the seasons of your life? Consider this (and remember, this is a metaphor for your life):
SPRING
February-April: Early Spring. Birth > age 20.
Sprouting, growing, blossoming, needing the care and nurture of others. A season of growth, preparation, and dependence. Needs protecting. A wonderful and energetic season when anything seems possible. Spring has many possibilities, but also many unknowns. Blossoms are vulnerable; a hailstorm or late frost can destroy them and cause a poor harvest later on. But for the most part, spring is the time for beginnings.
May: Late spring. 20s.
Initial overall growth has slowed; blossoms are gone and plants and trees give their energies to setting on of new fruit. Both the fruit and the plants or trees may not yet look like what they will become in full maturity. Fruit on the trees in May appears as a small and undeveloped shape of what it later will be.
SUMMER
June: Early summer. 20s-30s.
Plants or fruit are hardy and taking shape, but most are not yet ripe or ready to harvest. A season of development, growth, and ripening fruit.
July-August: Full summer. 30s-40s.
Crops in full ripening, many ready for harvest. Summer is a long and wonderful season where the plant or tree is in full health, and bearing fruit. Summer weather is sunny and invites getting out to enjoy the season, yet the heat can be intense and can sometimes make life uncomfortable. In the lives of people, summertime may encompass the 30s to the 50s, depending on circumstances.
September: Late summer/early fall. Late 40s-50s.
Much of the summer harvest is in, but some crops don’t even begin to bear until this season. In September it can often be difficult to tell whether it is summer or fall. It can be a little of both. The weather can be nearly as sunny and warm as in July and August, but something begins to feel different in September. The sun lays a bit lower in the sky, and it feels like change is around the corner. Leaves are still mostly green but one can start to see a little color on some bushes and trees.
FALL
October: Full Autumn. 50s-60s.
A glorious season in so many ways. Much of the harvest is in, except for late crops. The heat of summer diminishes, but the winter storms haven’t yet arrived. The trees turn color and are radiant, earning due admiration, but these colors are a reminder that decay and decline is around the corner. But we try not to focus on that, and just enjoy the glories of the season while it lasts.
October is many people’s favorite month, a warm and satisfying season where we can look back and reflect on the growth and labor of spring and summer, and enjoy the fruits of it. But October can also come with a touch of melancholy and sadness, realizing that the year is three-fourths gone, and winter not long distant.
November: Late Fall. 70s.
November may have many of the benefits of October, and it is not yet winter, but things clearly have changed. The weather is colder, leaves fall and the trees become bare. There still may be sunny days, but also more grey skies, and the fall rains or snow may arrive in force.
Even so, November is also a time for enjoying the fruit of the harvest, and is a season of Thanksgiving for good things enjoyed throughout the year. In November people get ready for winter, tucking in the garden, raking the last of the leaves, and sealing the cracks around the windows against the cold winds coming.
WINTER
December/January: Winter. Late 79s-80s +.
In the winter we turn inward, sheltering ourselves to keep warm and dry. Winter storms may blow, sometimes creating destruction, at the very least requiring that we find protection and limit or clean up the damage. Plants and trees go dormant; leaves are gone, new growth ceases. It may be a season for pruning, while the sap is down.
Winter does have it’s joys–snowfall and frosty mornings, hot cocoa, and of course Christmas (who would want it to be always winter but never Christmas?). But winter is also the end of the cycle. When spring later arrives, the new plants, leaves, fruit, and growth that will come are not a recycling of the ones from the year prior. We won’t eat the same apple twice, or grind the same kernels of grain. And yet the plants that lived, bore fruit, and gave their lives in the year just past have within them the seeds that make spring possible, even if they don’t live to see it.
WHAT SEASON ARE YOU IN?
I’m in my early 60s, so I calculate that I’m in the “October” of life, full autumn. This is actually a wonderful season of the year, one of my favorites. At the same time, I’m aware that much of the year (i.e., much of my life) has now passed. I do not take for granted what remains.
So what does the harvest season look like for me?
How can I build on what I’ve experienced and accomplished that can benefit others? How can I provide nurture and support for those in earlier seasons?
What are the tasks on which I need to focus? How can I prepare for the coming winter, while still enjoying the season I’m in?
How about you? What season of life are you in?
Most people in midlife (age 40-65) would be considered in the summer or early autumn of life. Understanding the rhythms and tasks of this season (or any season) is essential to thriving and being productive. More than likely, you are in the process of cultivating and/or harvesting. This is one of the most exciting times of life–don’t let it pass by without being intentional, and benefiting from the wisdom you’ve gained to this point.
Regardless of your season, what questions do you need to ask, and what tasks do you need to accomplish? How do you prepare for what is next? How do you live into your own season with intentionality, and with confidence and style? Don’t rush the seasons; don’t try to go back to the season just past; do all you can to thrive in the seasons of your life as you experience them.
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For related posts, see the Home Page, How to Influence with your Ethos, and The Invisible Man.
See the following for information on the tasks of farming and agriculture in each of the four seasons:
https://www.iowaagliteracy.org/Article/Farming-Through-the-Seasons
