The Phases of Creation – Part One: Visibility

kate northrup, creation, entrepreneurship

(This is part one of a four-part series on the phases of creation. Everything you ever birth–be it a baby, a book, a business, or a brunch–goes through these four phases. They sync up with the seasons, the lunar cycle, the menstrual cycle, and the planting cycle. Once you know what they are and use them consciously, you can add some serious rocket fuel to your creations and your creative process. When you’re ready here are parts two, three, and four!)

Summer finally felt like it started in Maine last week. We Mainers long for her steamy arrival all year long. There’s barely any foreplay because spring kind of doesn’t happen here. It’s cold and rainy and muddy, and then suddenly it’s summer.

Hello! I’m here! I’m hot! (Where the hell are all of my shorts and sandals?)

The energy of summertime is so delicious. It’s really my favorite. It’s sexy. It’s luxurious. It reminds me to savor, to let the juice run down my chin and not obsess right away that my fingers are getting sticky.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, today is the longest day of the year. It’s the Summer Solstice and it’s the official first day of summer. (Even though Memorial Day and the global permission to wear your white jeans was a few weeks ago, technically the season starts today.)

Growing up we used to have a Summer Solstice sleepover party every year. We would play flashlight tag way into the night, sleep in a tent in the backyard, and revel in the fact that we were free of the structure of school for two and a half months, and it was time to play. And to finally be warm while standing outside.

Our Western culture tends to lack rituals that help us be present and slow time down, so I find charting astronomical events like the solstices and equinoxes incredibly helpful for remaining present and reminding myself that I’m a human being living on planet Earth in a body connected to nature. 

Symbolically, the summertime has the same energy as the Full Moon in the lunar cycle and Ovulation in the menstrual cycle.

This energy is about:

  • Fertility
  • Cross-pollination
  • Receptivity
  • Visibility
  • Peak energy flow
  • Bringing things into manifestation
  • Magnetism

Each month we have a phase of this energy with the lunar cycle and with our menstrual cycles (if we do surf the crimson tide on a regular basis), and each of our projects or creations has this phase as well.

In fact, everything you create can have the very same framework of the seasonal, lunar, or menstrual cycle framework applied to it. I call it the Upward Cycle of Success, and there are four distinct phases: the Fertile Void (like winter), Emergence (like spring), Visibility (like summer), and Culmination (like fall).

(My membership community for people who want to grow their businesses while doing less, Origin®, dives really deep into using these phases to do less yet have more in your business and life. Get on the waitlist to be the first to know when enrollment opens again!)

Visibility, the phase of the Upward Cycle of Success that’s energetically like summer, is the time in the creative cycle where we’re getting out there. We’re spreading the word about what we’re up to, we’re pressing send, we’re hitting publish, we’re shipping, we’re launching!

No matter what phase the moon is in, what phase of your menstrual cycle you’re in, or what phase of the Upward Cycle of Success you’re working on, the Summer Solstice is a really great time to recognize the energy of Visibility, to celebrate it, and to magnify it!

Why? Because the entire Northern Hemisphere is energetically primed for magnetism and being seen. So why not make hay while the sun shines?

On this longest day of the year, here are a few simple ideas to capitalize on the astronomical event and capitalize on this energy in your own life:

  • Stay outside until the sun goes down. The sheer act of basking in the extra light is an honoring of the energy of visibility.
  • Do a simple burning ceremony where you write down all the things you want to let go of that are holding you back from shining your light in the way you desire and burn the piece of paper. Then call into being your desires around magnetism, visibility, and cross-pollination. Speak aloud what you want to bring into the light, write it down, or both.
  • Gather with friends and speak your desires out loud as you each light a candle (or do it via group text since it might be too late-notice to get together in person).
  • Make a mini vision board. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the prospect of filling an entire piece of poster board, and I end up spending a ton of time cutting out pictures that never get glued. So, why not do a mini one so you know it will actually get done? Set a timer for 15 minutes and cut out as many images or words as you can find that represent your desires, then spend 15 minutes gluing them to a piece of 8.5 x 11 or 11 x 17 card stock. Put it up where you’ll see it regularly to be reminded of your powers of magnetism.
  • Dance to a song that makes you feel sexy. One of my favorites right now is Body Like a Back Road by Sam Hunt. (Yep, I’m a huge country fan.)
  • Have sex. (I don’t think that one needs further explanation.)
  • Wear something that makes you feel sexy. (Note that I didn’t say that makes you look sexy. There might be a difference.)

Whatever you do to celebrate the longest day of the year and the dawning of this season of magnetism and peak receptivity, make it luscious. Make it fun. Make it feel good.

To me, this season is all about pleasure and the privilege it is to live in a body that has an almost infinite capacity to feel good and attract what you want. May today be the beginning of a long string of days when you give yourself permission to do just that.

OVER TO YOU:

Which one of these Summer Solstice celebration ideas appeals the most to you? What other ideas do you have for magnifying visibility and peak fertility for your ideas and creations? Tell me about it in the comments!

12 comments

  • Bettina Bowers

    Since it is also International Yoga Day, I’m doing 3 hours of yoga this evening in the park with friends.

  • Christine

    Kate, you´re so right! When you´re walking through nature with open eyes these days you are overwhelmed by the explosive energy of mother earth. Being a hobby bee-keeper, Í watch my hives daily in the garden and they tell me:
    Season´s right for swarming out!
    So do I with working on my first book. It took me several months breeding its structur, but now with the beginning of summer, the bright sunlight and the golden evenings help me to hang on. I believe in my writing, there´s no more doubt or pain in my words. My fingers are typing like in trance- my mind is free and easy. This night I try to do a forgiveness-meditation… Let go my old fears… Open my mind for good.
    Yours sincerely
    Christine

    • Kate Northrup

      Absolutely beautiful Christine! I love that the bees help you keep time of the season. And congratulations on your book – how exciting!

  • Lee

    I see you, Katie!! Brilliant, delicious and I’m making love, basking in the hot suns and burning a written list of all that no longer serves the highest good and letting it go , thank you, sweet , delightful , infinite and valuable human being. Marking the patience summer delivers.

  • Love your article Kate! I sailed to Bermuda under the light of the Sagittarius full moon and swam in the blue green water around our sailboat with the plankton’s iridescent glow. The starry sky was reflected in the ocean and it felt like our ship was in one of those little glass balls you hold in your hand, and shake to see the snow/stars, that I loved as a kid.
    Under the infinite sky we all seem connected.
    XXOX
    Nevenka

  • Love this Kate! I’m in the South Africa so I’m going inward this week for winter solstice. I was wondering if you have any suggestions for a fellow globetrotting mamapreneur – last week I was in Spain, this week I’m in South Africa, next week I’m in LA… It’s like I’m spread between winter and summer solstice energy and, honestly, my body is confused. I’m tuning in often AND finding it hard to settle into either (and then there’s my moon cycle and 11 moon center cycle haha!). Love being a woman xo

  • Mmm, so good, Kate. I love summertime for all of these reasons. My favorite is staying outside until the sun goes down. Here in Missoula, MT, that is 10pm these days. I’m also getting my creative juices flowing by hosting lots of gatherings in my back yard to connect my community. Happy Summer!

  • Hi Kate! Just wanted to pass along a fun tip to you and your readers. I use a great app, Hay House Vision Board. I think it was a few dollars but it’s quick and easy to update. I never thought to use it for seasonal rituals but I will now. Thank you!!

  • It’s fun to revisit this article a month after the Solstice and see how I’m working with this energy and how it is working through me.

    I’ve reviewing and refining how to present my work and making changes to my website.

    Being OK where I am… but finally feeling the some changes coming … needed changes in how I present my work to the world.

    I feel like a seed that’s been underground unfurling, now I’m pushing through the ground and soon, my leaves will spread wide to gather energy as I grow and my projects come to fruition.

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