Did you shimmy into that first week of January, shake your booty to twist and shout? Or did you step out brimming confidence onto the slippery floor of life only to find yourself upended, dazed and wondering how you wrong footed that first step. No matter how much we may wish to American Smooth our days this year, the Universe has an alternative picture and we’re often tumbled by it. How do we do life? Making good choices is the first step to doing life in a way that means we are not at the behest of circumstance.
Outside the garden picture is stripped of colour. My Pennisetum grass, at the back door, fades. It is almost yellow and it will soon be time to cut it back. I hate to do it, even in its drying there is a trembling movement which is perhaps even more grace-filled than the vibrant green of Spring and Summer. In order for it to thrive and return, the brutality of chopping back is absolutely essential. So the shears will be brandished and the rusty chack of each cut will leave us with an ugly tuft, but with a plant that can come back.
Perhaps this is also true for us. We need to ‘Winter’ too, harmonise ourselves with the seasons, slow, withdraw, rest and pare back the excess. Stuff we’ve gathered to ourselves in the last twelve months and which culminated in the indulgent excess of Christmas. Thoughts and things we’ve harboured and held on to which now weigh down and serve no useful purpose, need excising. They are a dead weight. A ruthless but precise cutting, like a surgeon with a scalpel in the operating theatre, at the surplus of us. Make a clean cut and remember less is more. It will hurt.
It can be hard to undertake this because our year’s harvest is familiar and comfortable, a layer of protection against an invisible aggressor, life. A cushion against what? Outside leaves have fallen and decompose to become mulch. Trees shed twigs and branches to stand lighter, but stronger through the rigours of Winter. Most flowers are absent, green needles are just pricking the surface of dark soil as a beautiful reminder that new is coming. Our waterways run high, gush and then freeze as temperatures descend to minuses. We wait on icicles, snow flakes, hoar frosts and all things cold. In the UK, at least, climate change has not entirely robbed us of seasonal change. We can take a leaf (pardon the pun, it’s intentional) out of nature’s book. Let go and trust that in the surrender of the surplus, we too will blossom in a new way. Unhampered by the burden of the past, fresh and with space to cultivate a life approach that may, in it’s rebirth, be something powerful, innovative.
A first choice then, in this new year, could be to do some trimming at least, if hacking and slashing feel too extreme. A big clear out of your home, your body, your mind. A detox across the whole board of your life to clean up and prepare a new ground for the experiences of 2024. A good intention for each 24 hours around who and how you are to be.
Inside we have some Dogwood branches that have been in water since mid December. Fabulous red branches in a Christmas arrangement which I thought would be binned along with shrivelled berries and blackened holly leaves at the end of the year. Not so. These bare branches had another idea and it is precisely why I’m fascinated by the complexity and peculiarities of nature. They have not only borne bud and leaf, but fruited too. They’ve surprised me. They are utterly magnificent, branches shiny red and fresh leaf green continuing to thrive in fresh water and without root. I’m in awe probably because I don’t understand the mechanics of plant life and just gaze in loving wonder at their display on the window sill as I sit on the loo in the bathroom. It’s pure, silent theatre.
Psalms 139:14-16 New International Version (NIV)
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
I think to myself that this, too, is a symbol of what might take place ‘inside’ for us. All kinds of wonder is constantly at work even when we’re careless with ourselves. The resilience of the Dogwood is radical and with the right conditions we can also be radically resilient. A phrase coined by the Centre of Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque for this year’s meditation focus. I would urge you to Google and find out more if you are remotely interested in making an active difference to a world on fire.
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/2024-daily-meditations-theme-radical-resilience/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DM&utm_content=Explore+Further
Choice number two then is cultivating the right conditions for yourself. The detritus is discarded, now the task of exploring in what conditions you are best able to bloom? What type are you, a desert flower, a marsh marigold, a winter alpine? All require specifics in which to thrive - so do we. Some time spent in a deep dig to discern exactly what matters most to you and how best to create the finest condition for growth is time well spent. It’s not lazy to be still, silent and undistracted by technology. When was the last time you gave yourself this luxury of absorption and concentration on something good. Your body and mind will thank you. Centuries ago John Cassian said:
“The mind is always moving and meandering, and it’s torn apart in different directions like it’s drunk.”
There’s nothing new under the sun. 1,600 years ago distraction was a thing. We can resolve to be different, choose another direction and bring some quiet focus back into the chaos of modern life. Change the pace and refuse to be sucked back onto the hamster wheel.
At our prayer buddies yesterday, held here at Michaelmas, I wanted to encourage a feeling of rest and a slowing for my two friends. They are both very busy women, deeply in need of rest and continually striving to serve a broken world whose demands are relentless. I had paid attention to the detail of our time together choosing readings from diverse sources but which lean into a gentler way. The mugs and enamel pot we took tea from, generous slices of ginger cake, hot buttered toast, all spoke of comfort and ordinariness. We talked, our discourse broad and animated, honest and compassionate. Our prayer forms as we dialogue and fills the air. We can’t go back to what now seems a simpler time, but we can learn from it. Employ some of those old strategies and make them a part of our times now so that our littlest ones grow up familiar with the peace contained in them. From Ronald Blythe, the month of January in his wonderful book Next to Nature:
‘Winter Wild’: ‘I write a bit then wrap up, go out once more and make a place for the oil tanker to park. Come in, type a page or two, read a chapter, listen to a story on the radio, water hyacinths, answer letters and call it a day. For such is the literary life. All go.’
I realise we cannot all spend our days like this. Maybe you wouldn’t want to, but an element of this in our day can benefit even the fastest among us. I wonder if you can hear the speed in his day from this small excerpt? It’s slow. Meaningful. Content to put space between things and not over ram the waking hours. If you are a young mum with small children, you may be raising your eyes to heaven at the impossibility of this. I think of my girls here: Sophie, Fleur, Jess and soon Imogen. Another choice we can make is to insist upon small mindful moments to punctuate our day and educate the babes into accepting it as their norm. We are the teachers, the world may say one thing: GET BACK ON THE TREADMILL, you may say something else, NO, and mean it.
Whatever choices you make today, this week, month and year, be careful with yourself. Be clean and clear about your best conditions. Slice into yourself and re-root. Or to use modern terminology reboot…. Put a spring in your step. Till the next time,
A
Lyrical writing Alice, beautiful. To help the planet we all need to stop buying new things as soon as something becomes worn or tired-looking. If you watched the programme about the container ship which blocked the Panama? canal and which showed the dozens of other container ships queueing to get through or turning to find another route you may have been as stunned as I was to realise how much 'stuff' is being transported across the oceans every day, all stuff that we have ordered . I guess some of it is vital for hospitals etc. but I am sure much of it is not necessary. The programme stated the number of container ships that make these trips every day, 200 I think, each carrying on average 15,000 containers. The largest ships carry more than 24,000.