If you've been a long-time reader of Free Refills, you know that I see each change of seasons as an auspicious time, and that I believe the energy of the seasons can and should guide us in the ways we approach our lives.
Each season has a particular energy to it. Spring is the time for planting, of course, and fall is the time for harvest, and the winter solstice is the day of symbolic death and rebirth, leading into a time of rest, quiet, and recuperation.
However, I have had trouble giving name to the energy of summer. In summer I see fullness, but I was unable to figure out how that should guide me until I attached a new word to the summer solstice and the summer season that follows: fruition. Summer is the time for bringing things to fruition.1
Happy Summer Solstice. Let us now begin to bring things to fruition.
1 Interestingly, I learned this today:
The original meaning of fruition had nothing to do with fruit. Rather, when the term was first used in the early 15th century, it meant only "pleasurable use or possession." Not until the 19th century did fruition develop a second meaning, "the state of bearing fruit," possibly as the result of a mistaken assumption that fruition evolved from fruit. The "state of bearing fruit" sense was followed quickly by the figurative application to anything that can be "realized" and metaphorically bear fruit, such as a plan or a project.
Obviously I meant fruition in the sense of "state of bearing fruit," but I like the meaning "pleasurable use" as well.
3 thoughts on “Fruition”