understanding patterns; connecting dots

I cut the grass this afternoon. The sun was out, the remnant autumn leaves littered the yard and driveway. I didn’t really need to because at this time of year nothing is growing very much, but it just seemed the best way to spend an hour. And I thought about the season we’re in right now and wondered what it is inviting. It makes sense that we have our long holiday breaks in the summer, when we can enjoy the long days and warm weather. That’s our way right? Endless summer days and beach rituals. But as I’ve been pondering the seasons and impending winter solstice, I wonder how our lives would be different if we celebrated the winter solstice in the yule tradition. (Of course, this is a southern hemisphere question!) Imagine if we had a week off where we paused from our go go go. Imagine if (like many of us were forced to do during the pandemic lockdowns) we bunkered down and went slow, reconnecting with ourselves, our loved ones and the things that matter. Imagine if it was the norm t...

What if time wasn’t linear after all? What if a spiral was a better model? This morning, as we walked along the river beach at low tide and bathed in the beauty of the early morning sun shrouded behind fog, Maria suggested that the season we have been living through has been a bit like an autumn. Autumn is a time of shedding, when external growth slows and nature begins to retreat into itself. The environment composts the unused harvest, harnessing the energy to invest back into preparation for the next season. That’s what it has felt like. Our frequent and at times vulnerable ponderings about our living have been almost exclusively about what we need to leave behind, rather than what we need to become or achieve. We have no regrets about what we have accumulated or become, but we are increasingly committed to being and having less, by letting go and shedding. The masks and strategies we use to navigate life are revealing themselves as we push further into our inner worlds and discover...