Globally, we human creatures shared a solstice yesterday. Yet, our experience of this shared point in time and space was dependant on where the place we’re inhabiting sits on the tilt of the Earth: whether the longest day of the year or the shortest, the middle of winter or the middle of summer, another polar night or another polar day, our experience of solstice depended on where we were located.
Our daily lives are shaped by the continual arc of pull and return, of longing and completion, of orbiting the sun on a planet travelling an elliptical path.
I’ve been locating myself within the movement of time through ecological touchstones like solstices, the twice-yearly peak of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, much more in recent years.
And here in Devon, England, yesterday was the winter solstice. I now honour the depth of the winter darkness and cold and all it brings with it by hanging white paper snowflakes and placing arrangements of holly and pines and evergreen leaves around the house. Ecological markers, inspired by human stories of the gifts and dangers of winter that stretch their roots far beneath the reach of more modern, Christian stories.
In the darker and colder days, I find myself in close relationship with many longings and gratitudes, in where I am in my personal arc of pull and return, and in being with what is being left behind and what is opening up before me.
Related to this substack, the gratitudes and longings include:
Gratitude for being able to curate this collection of essays and enquiries, ready and waiting for those that are drawn to exploring interbeing, enquiry, complex relationality, ecologicalness, an animist perspective, decentralising humanity while not reducing our worth, storying a kincentric future, systems thinking, humans as nature, living systems, and all that’s in relationship with these.
Longing for less subscribers if that would lead to this substack towards more of an arc of receiving and gifting than mostly a movement from me to reader, to becoming more of a meeting point for shared exchange than a one-way completion.
Gratitude for the readers who take the time to share a like, write a comment, introduce this work to others, or send me a private message about what they’re enjoying and what it means to them. (So much gratitude.)
Longing for more stigmergic signals being left by those who find this work meaningful and useful, so it might become more available to those who would also find it meaningful and useful.
Gratitude for the myriad of authors and substack portals that have travelled me deeply during this past orbit, including Sophie Strand and Make Me Good Soil , Tyson Yunkaporta, Donna Haraway, Dr Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, Adam Kahane, Rūta Žemčugovaitė and Regenerative Transmissions, the Becoming Crew substack, Jim Palmer and Deconstructionology with Jim Palmer , Jessica Böhme and wild:philosophy, Ursula Le Guin, Ellen Davis and Ellen Davis - Living Eternity in Time, Will Ruddick and Journal of a Grassroots Economist, Tad Hargrave and On Culture Work, Anna Branten and The Starting Point, Indy Johar, Ganga Devi Braun and The Living World, Minna Salami and Kaleido: The Europatriarchy Files , and so many more.
Longing for more co-authorings with those that hold wisdom I am not yet in relationship with.
Wishing us all a gentle and joyful return orbit towards the sun and kindness for our personal and collective gratitudes and longings.
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