After a full, long year, moments of rest and reflection seem fleeting in the face of 2023, don’t they?
Counting down the days and hours until we “begin again” take on a fever pace as we are conditioned to look back, tally up all our accomplishments, celebrate our wins, plan to better our “failures”, and jump into a New Year, New Me mentality as soon as the clock strikes midnight.
And while these processes are important, yes, they are also on someone else’s time frame…
A flip of a calendar page doesn’t change everything, or anything, really…
And is a perfect reflection of our modern society…
Of tying our intrinsic value to our productivity…
And at odds with Nature and her slow descent into Winter…
Her slow unfurling into Spring…
And all the glorious movement that happens beneath the surface in between.
Don’t get me wrong, most of us live happily, comfortably, in our present day society, built of convenience and anchored in the plans and habits that make all of our days pass as smoothly as possible…
But I feel in my core that we’re missing the most important whispers of our truest selves when we’re always looking ahead instead of taking a moment, right now, to just be, and allow space for the best tendrils of life to unfurl around us and within us during the darkest, coldest days.
There’s always plenty to plan for…
Plenty of tasks to be added to lists and later checked off in an effort to accomplish all the things we need and want to do as we make our way through this wild life we’re each living…
But for now…
In this liminal space between all that’s been and all that’s yet to come…
As we look at the ending of a marker and beginning of another…
It is my goal to do my best to follow Nature’s lead…
To take the new beginnings slowly, like the lengthening of days…
One minute, one hour, one day at a time…
And watch the way it all quietly adds up.
I wish the same for you, Friend.
May your slide into (and through) 2023 be a gentle one.
xoxo,
Melis
