We can always begin again
I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about how I would like to live
My partner and I said goodbye to 2024 with a sweet gathering of friends, family and neighbors. After getting our winter farm share from Natural Roots, the incredible CSA that nourished us all year, we cooked for days. The preparations for our New Year’s Eve gathering and the gathering itself, reflected many of my intentions for 2025: slow, sensual, local living; building and nurturing community. It feels increasingly essential to build local ecosystems of care and collaboration in today's divisive sociopolitical landscape.
My intentions of slow, and sensual living require sensory presence: noticing, tasting, listening, touching, receiving. This means I must make space for silence, solitude and nothingness. Time and space to digest and integrate all that I’ve read, seen, done, said, and heard.
When I’ve done nothing1 for long enough, I enjoy the sound of things. Even the sound of my fingers moving across the computer keyboard. This means I am here and not somewhere else, not dwelling in the past or rushing ahead into the future. This is the nature of sensuality; being in the moment, my senses awake and alive. Alive to savor the first wild strawberries that emerge from the ground, the fresh herbs that enhance every meal, the countless wild blueberries I'll harvest. I want to learn more from my wild neighbors this year, too: bird song, fox sign, fungal-tree partnerships. Slow, sensual living means more intimacy with my environment, with my partner, with my friends, and with myself.
I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about how I would like to live.
When I ran a holistic herbalism school in Brooklyn, I encouraged my students to take stock of how they were spending their time and energy and ask questions like: What thoughts, activities or habits are nourishing me? Which ones are depleting me? How much of that is within my control? How can I adjust my days so that I lean more and more into nourishment? Medicinal plants and fungi can only do so much if we’re not taking care of ourselves.
I've been asking myself similar questions: What brings me joy? What doesn't? What work is essential for Earth and social justice? What activism is ineffective, or worse, simply performative? What depletes me? What nourishes me? What truly nourishes the Earth and those I love? What relationships do I want to nurture?
Each year, I find myself drawn to an even simpler life filled with intention. A life that prioritizes fulfilling relationships with loved ones, my local community and the wider ecosystem. The longer I live, the less I feel I need to prove myself. Maybe that is the wisdom of aging, of continuing to live.
This leads me to question the overwhelm and overstimulation of the digital age where, as an author and self-employed person, the pressure to ‘market’ myself or ‘be relevant’ is triggered. Is it necessary to be constantly "on," to be perpetually connected as someone who is self-employed? Is it necessary for me to engage in social media even though it feels unhealthy for me? What if I chose to prioritize more depth over breadth? To cultivate meaningful connections over superficial ones, as exciting as some may seem? Substack feels different to me. It is slower, more thoughful, and doesn’t make me feel distracted. Whereas spaces like Instagram create an environment in which I'm living outside myself.
This is my one life. Why participate in something that doesn't feed me?
I’ve been on Instagram less and less, and have been completely off since winter solstice. This has led to more long phone conversations with friends, including friends whose faces I regularly saw on the screen. Images that did not reflect how their lives were being lived. We all know about this dissonance and yet, the illusion of connection through virtual worlds creates a false sense of intimacy. I’d rather devote time to my friends offline. More long conversations and in-person connections. This is what feeds me.
So, now I ask you:
What brings you joy? What feeds you? What are you truly hungry for? What truly nourishes the Earth, your wild neighbors and those you love? What relationships do you want to nurture?
You don’t need a new year to begin again.
WINTER INVITATIONS & OFFERINGS:
Writing For The Wild in partnership with Project Coyote:
Seminar (one space left) begins Jan 9th
Lecture series begins Jan 19th
Boxing at the Franklin County YMCA. We begin next week!
It has been so fun to coach again!
RTW: February Developmental sessions
This is for current (or former students) with works in progress who want to focus on one piece for the duration of the class. We begin February 13th.
I can’t mention doing nothing without recommending Jenny Odell’s book: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Powerful questions. Thank you. 💗
Reading this post couldn’t have come at a more perfect time as I sit here in a little retreat room in an artist’s collective in Colorado. A night away with not much to do except let my mind unravel, untether from the To Dos, and find a bit of nothingness, of quiet (not so easy when the mind is hankering for productivity). Thank you Vanessa for the reminders and the space you create here.