happy "no new things" day 2022!
21 Oct 2022preface: if you’re curious in the evolution of this experiment/thought/practice, here are the last 3 posts about it: 2021, 2020, 2019.
happy belated equinox (22 sept). aka happy (fourth) no new things day!
it’s been a glorious and full spring and summer but fall is here. i always don’t like it upon arrival. and yet when i begin to settle into it, i’m like… the reason i don’t like fall is because it’s hard to slow dooooown. no new things day is a structure i commit to in order to prepare for winter, which i’ve found is even harder than fall except for when i prepare for it well. in those cases, it, too, can be glorious.
anyways, me writing about no new things day this year was prompted by a coaching session i had with birth center equity yesterday. shoutout to the powerful BCE team (nash, les, cass, tenesha, and marinah) and all their wisdom that inspires and gives reason for me to share what i know! during the session, nashira named several previous posts of mine about seasonal things and work etc and so i’m writing here to share some updates on my thinking through the lens of no new things day. some of this will be a rehash and some if it will be new. as always, it will be written without perfectionism, trusting that out in the world and imperfect is better than partially edited but stuck on my computer/in my head and not in the world.
- no new things day is an external frame that helps me say WAY more no than i could without it. i even have an email response drafted for easy copy-paste usage. internally, though, the system is a bit more nuanced. internally, what i typically do is
- the reason for the boundary is that the inertia of the year is MASSIVE at this time of year. see my post yesterday about how the fall foliage is one way nature visibilizes this. if i don’t start being intentional about saying no, there is no way to arrive into winter with any sort of slowness. which is what my body (and often mind and spirit actually want).
- over the last year, the followin metaphor has been an important evolution in the thinking of no new things day and i’m thankful for all the friends, farmers, podcast interviews, and indigenous leaders whose thinking is embodied in this: when trees drop their leaves, that doesn’t mean nothing is happening (some lessons from trees in 2020 over here). it just means where the work is happening shifts. the leaves fall for many reasons, but two that i’ve learned are (1) that for some trees, having leaves during snow and ice can be a structural risk to the tree (frozen water is heavy and can cause limbs and branches to break). also snow and ice can damage the leaves themselves. (2) it’s basically a cost-benefit sitch. the amount of water and sun present isn’t enough for trees to maintain the leaves so they drop them in order to prioritize and focus resources. (more about this here, here, and here). when the leaves are gone, the work the tree slows, shifts inside, and moves underground. that’s dope.
- lessons/implications from this: (1) when you have infrastructure you don’t need, shed it, especially if you have the capacity to recreate it when needed. (2) there are times/seasons where internal work and work below the surface is what’s right to do. (3) if you do the internal work when the time is right, when the time comes to shift back to external, you can actually create more than you did before.
- no new things day allows me to create the space i want/need to slow down in winter, dig deep, reflect broadly, and come into the next year with my own vision and strategy in mind, rather than be reactive to what other people’s vision for my life and time is. having my own vision and strategy helps me be responsive rather than reactive. it helps me practice emergence (patterns created by following simple rules) rather than spontaneity (action taken based on impulse) or randomness (actions or outcomes that have no pattern or predictability in their distribution).
okayyyyyyy i can feel myself having more thoughts here and it’s time to shift attention to another post before i start getting ready for the day.
one thing i notice in this moment is that i’m very excited to have more time to read and write again! like in 2020, i’ve started to ramp up my daily morning reading time (sept 21-oct20 i did 15 mins/day and today i jumped 30mins/day) and i’ve set out mornings in november for writing time so looking forward to seeing what that brings :D
omg ok i gotta stop. baiiiiiiiiii.
words / writing / post-processing
818w / 40min / 10min