Re-uploaded 7/22/2018 as part of the Archive Restoration Project.

This past weekend, my partner and I met with a Crone (pagan term of respect for wise women who’ve moved beyond the Maiden and Mother phases of the Goddess self) who was uninterested in being respected for her age.

She told us that every seven years is a time of cleansing and change. For her it was symbolic, and she said that if you’re aware of this pattern, there’s a chance for a Spring Cleaning of sorts. Every seventh year is an ideal time to cleanse, physically and spiritually, to prepare for the next seven years. The years spent being the age of 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 are eventful and eye-opening for most people, and 49 can be extremely difficult because it’s 7 squared. These times are not necessarily good, because the energetic vessel is fresh and open, vulnerable to pain and the problem of facing unpleasant realizations.

This isn’t backed scientifically – a popularized myth is that the cells in our bodies die and replace themselves over a course of seven years, but it probably has roots in the 7-year cycle. But just like birthdays, seven years and ten years are arbitrary times to look back and reflect. For me, the 7-year cycle resonates. Now that I’m 23, I can look back on what happened at the ages of 7, 14, and 21, and see what major life events happened in those years. It’s appealing to look at a cycle of years that’s a little different than the usual 1-, 5-, and 10-year goals I’m used to.

I turned seven in 1999. I’d just traveled from Minnesota to Virginia Beach with my family, and we made another road trip the following summer to the other coast, before I turned 8. I identified Star Wars as my myth, the Force and the struggle between light and dark made more sense to me than any religious philosophy I’d been taught. My parents grounded me off of Star Wars because my obsession was too piously divided against my devotion to God (and also because my mom was just annoyed with my asking to watch Return of the Jedi over and over). Y2K passed while I was seven, and I remember the adults applauding my resourcefulness as we prepared extra canned goods and grains to last us through the predicted apocalyptic horrors of the coming years. My family moved to Colorado just after I turned eight.

I turned fourteen in 2006. I read a book series that impacted me – Viking Quest by Lois Walfrid Johnson – and it prompted me to get up before sunrise on this birthday and walk outside. We filmed our show for The Learning Channel while I was fourteen, and I nearly died from Whooping Cough, which my siblings and I battled for several months, losing an entire semester of homeschooling. These seven years were my most Christian years, and I dedicated myself to Jesus and explored what I called the twice-removed desire. Those seven years marked my high school and college attempts to seriously unearth the foundations of my religion, and I learned to listen to the Infinite One. My family was recovering from a painful church split, I was questioning the teachers in AWANA and debate club, and I visited a church that taught predestination, making me seriously grapple with fate and the Christian God.

I turned twenty-one in 2013. This year was gigantic on a spiritual level, and I released old stories I’d been telling myself, and came to accept my own political views and sexuality. That was the year that my parents kicked me out, and I confronted an entity in the mirror that I called the Narrator, and told her to stop ruling my life. I learned that I was an empath, and I lost all trust for my mother just before I turned 22. The foundation that I set in my twenty-first year have already made the years since a series of fantastical experiences. Each thing that happens is more revolutionary than the thing before, and I wouldn’t have been open to it at any other time.

Savoring everything allows me to feel a sense of slowness. I’m prioritizing the mindfulness and recklessness that keeps life fresh. Time is an illusion and a perspective. Anyone can take as much as they want, merely with enhanced attention and openness.