dear you,

How is your wintering going? Many of you also live in the lands that have just been or are still covered by snow, which I find such a gift to remind that it is indeed still winter, when calendar and business-as-usual culture pushes to believe that its all new beginnings and we must go on, even when many of our bodies still feel like hybernating. It is from a place of this longing in my body that I am writing to you. Make yourself a cup of tea and take your time. And please write back if a string is touched in you. I love hearing from you, even a couple of words is a gift.

what's alive and present

From winter solstice I had a two week wintering break. To rest, reflect, have timeless days, get lost in the flow of doing crafts and music, and to practice being more and doing less (still a huge learning curve for me).

In the middle of the first week of being back in my work “garden” I already felt close to being burned out by the intensity I put myself into, rooted in the logic of “I have just rested, hence its time to keep going again”. I do genuinely love tending to the different plants in my work garden, but this made me reflect deeply on my own and our collective relationship with rest. When do we rest, how, and why? How to break the curse of the still largely present expectation in the cultural sector that we should be available at all times and that everything is urgent and “must happen” now. That our time off is something we often need to justify.

There are times and contexts where the necessity to do all to survive, whether its wars, hunger, coping with consequences of climate disasters or other calamities is so present that resting may indeed not be a thing to prioritize easily or at all. Partly this is also what I learned in my own family since early age. As most of our food, all of our warmth, and many of our medicines had to be grown, foraged, harvested, and prepared, the labour load for most of the year was so intense that we were all working round the clock. But we did rest more in winters, and this is where my soft spot for the winter time comes. 

As synchronicities go, right amidst these reflections my friend Katrine sent me the “January Wisdom” writing by poet and nature therapist Brigit Anna McNeill. I found so much resonance with it overall yet the sentence that shook me the most was “rest is not a reward for exhaustion, but a necessary condition for life”. It came as a little volcanic eruption asking me to rebuild some of the structures in my life and keep the good ones truly sacred. Rest also became big part of the Wintering circle / journey I am currently hosting. Last week we did a collective napping and lullaby singing and it was so deeply beautiful that it still carries me softly.

How do you create caring working structures in your practice? How do you practice resting? I would love to hear from you.

upcoming events

plant listenings

ways to engage

I have found that one of the best ways to create more caring structures in everything is to rethink and collectivize things. As a freelancer biggest part of my days goes into creating the conditions for actually being able do the part of work I love and enjoy. There is a lot of reaching out, sharing about the work, fundraising for projects and art pieces, applying for residencies etc.. It is therefore always such an incredible gift to get a bit of support with this.

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Brewing or doing something that you would like more people to hear aboout? Let me know, I will be happy to share about it in the recommendations section of future newsletters.

library

this is a continuous open invitation to engage with the Willow House library that houses a growing collection of books and publications on land, healing, feminism, spirituality, ecology, social justice, and much more. If you are in Aarhus, you can become a member and borrow books. Reach out for more information and the list of titles available on the shelves.