Wintering and coming alive
Hunkering down through the darkest time of the year brings many gifts
Photo credit: Asha Singh 2024
And so here we are, almost at the end of the year, whatever that means to us personally. For me, time is an expansion of space and consciousness, a fluid movement of energy through that continuum. I stopped wearing a watch more than 30 years ago and only look at the clock on my phone or set an alarm when I need to travel or have an early morning call. The transition from one year to the next is more a chance to go within to discover what is falling away and what is coming alive than an ending and beginning. A time for gathering - literally and energetically - and preparing the ground for the spring.
A few days ago I turned 55. Somehow it feels more significant than the big 5-0, which happened just before the world went mad with Covid. The last 5 years have seen all sorts, from the devastating and lingering, to the amazing and awe-inspiring. A real breaking down to break through. And it shows no sign of slowing down or stopping, in fact quite the opposite. Which is perhaps what makes this birthday feel like a particular marker among many others.
Work has changed beyond recognition. From lucratively facilitating executive teams stuck in limited sensemaking and experimentation to resolve their self-created challenges in beautiful places around the world, I’ve gone through:
letting my network more or less unravel and focusing on expanding my own sensemaking rather than rebuild it
senior healthcare practitioners asking me who the hell did I think I was to offer reflective spaces in a pandemic, then desperately seeking them years later
making fantastic proposals for a variety of organisational challenges only to find that there was no real opportunity on offer, instead people were looking for free ideas without any decision-making or budgetary power of their own
several iterations of potential partnerships that seemed promising but never really got out of the door
various injuries that have knocked me out just as new things have shown signs of becoming worthwhile
I’ve never earned so little in decades of professional life, I’ve lost my financial autonomy for the time being at least and it sucks, and I also need to take regular care of my elderly mother who lives alone in another country.
I’m not sharing these events to muster sympathy or empathy or to evoke reactions of the opposite. Through this unravelling, which has not come easily, I will admit, I’ve also learned so much more than I ever did while I was busy doing the work that I loved, not least because it helped to keep me as I wanted to be.
I’ve learned - and continue to - about how I create my own reality and my power to change it. I’m learning about the importance and value of letting go and surrendering to something far bigger than myself, which also shows me time and time again how I get in my own way. All the masks and tricks and smart discussions I can use to keep me safe from the reality that everything is interdependent and impermanent. Even the things that seem so solid and secure, even life itself.
“This life’s dim windows of the soul
Distort the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
William Blake
In short, life has stepped in and is running the show. I’ve found a much stronger sense of purpose than I knew I had. I am far clearer now than in younger years about my boundaries, what’s important to me and what really isn’t anymore. 2024 really felt like it disappeared in a flash. Less about getting older and time being more precious, all about timelines and experience and growth. The fluidness of time and space that I touched on earlier.
I’ve met a new partner and we’re still in the energies of shaping what that will look like out in the world. The work itself has emerged through our meandering dialogue with a strong voice of its own. That dialogue has felt like the most natural thing in the world to give our energy to, without any intention or design of an output from it. Put differently, something valuable for us and all those who will be part of it has arisen in the precious container that we have been weaving together for several months. A body of practice and knowing that is showing us, and all those who wish to receive it, what it means and takes to feel stable in the face of the strong winds and storms which are appearing more and more frequently on our collective horizons.
I’ll not work for free any longer, whatever the powerful narratives say that characterise some of the landscapes and groups I have been part of. Abundance does not mean giving it all away (to train LLMs and satisfy those who choose not to invest in their own learning). I am not a millionaire and I own next to nothing. Neither do I wish to suck at the teat of billionaires as an alternative to late-stage capitalism. Reciprocal value flows need to produce just that, not as a means to share what certain figures believe they have received from Source. My late father, Indian born and bred, gave me some unsolicited words of advice many years ago: Meditation doesn’t pay the bills. He was right.
Personally I need cash, the stuff that makes the world go round when you live in a western economy, a big city. Moving to some remote part of the world where I can financially survive on what I have, share my inner riches with others and grow our own food is a wonderful idea. I have actually done it and would not do it again, similarly it is not a realistic alternative to business-and-life-as-usual. Neither are coins of different kinds - they’re fine as long as you only want, or need, to exchange with whoever also gives them value.
So, these last 12 months have been an important confirmation to me, and surely not just me, that culture per se does not hold the keys to our future. Or better, what arises through the expansion of collective consciousness to replace an extractive, destructive approach to flourishing on this beautiful planet has to be able to produce the means we need to live well enough, at scale, to prevent global war. It will inevitably involve tech - that revolution has already been well underway for some time - and it will arise necessarily from our shared culture. But it will be well beyond notions of ‘we are one’, ‘we are germs destroying the planet’ or ‘the end of the world is nigh, we all need healing’.
I sense the keys are in what we give value to, what we are willing to pay for, build up, conserve for future generations. Small shifts in our value systems that bring about much bigger impacts, as happened to bring about the end of slavery, or even smoking in public spaces. Things that you and I can do without turning our lives upside down. Things that keep us stable, whatever life throws at us.
For one who has advocated ‘revolution’ in her own way for much of her life, this learning is no small fry. It has indeed come about through healing some of my own wounds - an ongoing journey - instead of projecting them out onto all that feels uncomfortable, wrong and not part of my ‘tribe’. It is coming through restabilising my own life, not using my energy and skills to encourage others to change and reaping the rewards that ensured a relatively even balance in my own world. It is also coming through learning about all sorts of things, with all sorts of people, in many different ways. From the inside out.
I think this possibility is available to all of us, whatever our means, bandwidth or worldview. It doesn’t require particular political leanings or that we belong to specific groups or live in certain areas of the world. We can all learn to dance between ‘chaos’ where we learn fast to adapt, or die, and rest, the day-to-day where the sun may be shining, we have a roof over our heads, full bellies and warm hearts, someone to love us and somewhere to belong.
This last week, the weather here in Milan has been gloriously clear, bright and cold. Piercing sunshine, little to no wind and a temperature that feels right for the time of year. No clouds, no rain and no ice. Many would say these are worrying signs of climate change, which may well be true. But what if they are also signs of bright light coming into the world, illuminating all those dark corners we prefer to ignore or are unaware of, showing us where we can always grow and expand, individually and as a collective? What if they are offering us just what we need at the precise moment we need it?
What if life is full of endless possibility as the things we have long held important increasingly break down?
Wouldn’t that be a much more enlivening expression of abundance? I think so.
Thanks for reading.