June (2024)
May Daffodils on my road
Focus - “Fertility/ Productivity”
If I had to choose, I would likely say June is my favorite month. the suns light is at its peak and seems to supercharge the desire to do. June not only holds my birthday, it is also woven into the very name of my company “Acro Vitality” - acro from the Greek “pinnacle, highest, topmost, peak” and vitality "essential to, or manifesting life". (If you have not already noticed, I am a huge fan of etymology and shared stories.) In many ways, June truly is the year’s pinnacle of vitality.
June or Juin, comes from the Latin iunius, means "sacred to Juno" (the roman goddess who governed over youthfulness, fertility and vital energy). Literally meaning "the young one" from juwen "young," and related to Latin aevum and Greek aion (αἰών) through a common Indo-European root referring to the"fertile time" (and fertility comes from the Latin fertilis means "bearing in abundance, fruitful, productive".
In the northern hemisphere, June is an especially productive month in agriculture. Many crops like wheat, oats, and barley are harvested, and a peak time for livestock farming, with many farms hosting livestock shows and sales.
In nature, June is the time when animal and plant growth is at its peak. Because the season of birth and growth is relatively short for many animals (generally lasting only three or four months) by summer’s end, most babies have become adults and leave their parents to survive on their own. Raccoons, woodchucks, chipmunks, and deer (and countless other creatures) who are born in April or May, make their first appearances outside their birth places in June.
June is also particularly significant because it holds the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. The summer solstice has been one of the most culturally important annual days since the Neolithic era, and many ancient monuments in Europe, parts of the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, are aligned with the sunrise or sunset on the summer solstice. Many cultures recognize and celebrate the event in some way with holidays, festivals, and rituals with themes of, you guessed it; fertility.
The Front Functional Line (FFL)
Path - The Front Functional Line
The Front Functional Line is a primary tool in movements that shorten the front side of our frame, as with crunches, or “bear” climbing.
Additionally, we use this system in movements that create tension diagonally across the front of our body, like serving a tennis ball, throwing a spear, or swinging on monkey bars. We use the FFL to create support whenever we lean back with our hands behind our heads.
The endocrine system (Male above): Hypothalamus, Pineal gland, Pituitary gland, Thyroid & Parathyroid, Thymus, Adrenal, Pancreas, and Testes or Ovaries
The Endocrine System
When the external environment signals that the season of doing has sprung, it is the endocrine system that communicates that info to our inner world. The endocrine system is the series of glands that make hormones.
Hormones are just our body's chemical messengers. They carry information and instructions from one set of cells to another. These communications help control our mood, growth and development, organ function, metabolism, and reproduction.
Feeling spring fever hit, the onset of energy to tackle spring cleaning and start new projects, the significant uptick in sex drives - these shifts of our hormonal gears, are all just our endocrine systems displaying our connection to the annual cycle.
Principle - Perpetual Change
“Mobilis in Mobili”
- The motto of the Nautilus (from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea),
a Latin phrase meaning "Moving within a moving element, Moving within motion, or Changing with change".
When dynamite explodes, the stored chemical energy changes into kinetic energy, thermal energy, and sound energy. The total energy remains, but it has changed form. In physics, we refer to this principle as the law of Conservation of Energy:
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it merely changes from one form to another.”
The principal of perpetual change applies to all forms of energy, including mechanical, thermal, electrical, and chemical energy. It is a fundamental principle in physics, broadly accepted and experimentally verified. Human beings, and everything we think, feel and do, happen to be made up of these very forms of energy.
To make practical use of the principle of perpetual change in our lives, is a matter of taking agency (the faculty of acting or of exerting power, the state of being in action, instrumentality). Change is a fundamental truth. I can either choose to direct it in my own life, or be directed by it in my life. To take agency comes at the cost of an equivalent exchange: To gain agency, requires releasing the desire to control what I don’t.
When I ruminate on what is not in my control, my mind, emotions and body suffer for it; my energy is gradually consumed by something outside of myself. However, if I act within the parameters of what is truly in my control, I can add energy to my life; I can learn and develop my mind, balance and mature emotionally, nourish and strengthen my body. These choices allow me to move in better directions and gain ground in the world around me.
Life is truly a sea of change. I can stubbornly demand the waters stand still, and I will drown in the currents and waves, or I can choose to captain my vessel wisely; take hold of the helm, make meaningful choices, and become an agent of my own destiny.