The transformational journey - or the birth, life, death and rebirth cycle is exemplified through the four seasons - spring, summer, fall, and winter. Typically, spring is seen as a time of new life, summer a time of flourishing, fall a time of decay, and winter a time of death and gestation for the new life that is born again in spring. Thus the seasons are a model for the transformational journey. This model may suggest that initiation, transformation, and change is a process that always occurs in a direct, linear order, though it is not.

We are always in spiral-cycles of change and can begin the journey at any time. For some, autumn is a time of beginning, for that is when school starts and students (and the families that attend to them) begin anew. Winter may also be a time of new beginnings. For those who honor the Druid or Pagan tradition of celebrating earth cycles, the winter solstice is seen as the new year, when the longest night is celebrated as the beginning of new life. The increasing light is seen as the beginning of the suns' cycle, and therefore as a metaphor for the start of the new year. Similarly, western cultures' calendar begins the new year in January, right in the middle of winter. Clearly, for many, New Years Day, and winter may be the beginning of the cycle. Thus the seasons of inner change are indirectly reflected by natures' seasonal changes.

We are always at the beginning, and we are always at various stages of growth or decay. Life and death are intricately connected to one another; one is the shadow of the other, for without death there is no new life, and without life there is no death. If we resist death (and many, if not most, do) then we are impeding the process of new life. The death during the fall and winter cycle is what nourishes the earth for the rebirth that occurs in spring, just as the fullness of summers' growth leads into the eventual decay of autumn.

These cycles are inherent, not only in nature as we know it and define it, but in the natural forces within us as humans. Unfortunately, most of us live so insulated from nature that we lose our connection to our instinct and no longer easily surrender to this natural cycling of life. With artificial lighting, air conditioning, insulated buildings, fast-moving cars and airplanes, and cityscapes of large buildings clumped closely together, we are cut off from the organic world, from the cycles of the seasons, from our natural impulses and from our own cycles of birth, life, death, and rebirth. We are part of nature, however, and we respond to the cycles of life with the same instincts as all other creatures and life forms. The birth, life, death, and rebirth journey in Nature is a map of initiation and growth toward wholeness and Self-actualization. By mapping the territory and recognizing the story of transformation that is alive in nature, in the great forces of Life, and therefore in the very cells of our bodies, we find guidance for traversing the journey.