32: resting into the new 🌚

Iteration #32 of this monthly letter full of feelings. This issue's theme is:  ✶ ⋆⋰☾ metabolizing the year ☽⋰⋆ ✶

A Time Traveling Feelings Letter (or, remembering the importance of rest & the power of “no”) 〰️〰️ sent on March 7, 2023 〰️〰️ 

I read something about the recent new moon in February being the last new moon of the winter cycle, a thawing, a “last gasp ‘til spring.” The moon is already full again, so obviously I’m a little late (but that’s what you’ve come to expect from me – right? if you wanna know more about what’s happening in the sky *right now* Chani Nicholas does a great job breaking it down in her weekly reading).

At the end of 2022 I tried something new: not putting all the pressure of an entire lifetime onto the last months of the calendar. Instead, using the start of the winter cycle to slowwww into the final stretch of the year. Not apologizing for saying no, not adding anything new to my to do lists – just tying up only the loose ends that absolutely needed to be tied and saying f*ck it to anything else.

I have thought, for the longest time, that I could just *catch up* during the cold months. When things slow down, that’s my chance – everyone else may be hibernating but *I* simply am not meant to do that. Me? I do not deserve to rest. I need to do everything in my power to catch up to wherever I think I’m supposed to be. If I could just go into hyperdrive and focus more than I’ve ever focused before, I can finish everything at the end of the year and get my *fresh start.* After spending the first two months of the year ashamed for being so behind, march always knocks me out with the weight of a grief anniversary, and when spring finally arrives, I find myself crawling out of bed long after the time ~everyone else~ has already come out of hibernation. The cycle continues and continues. Always behind, summer passes too quickly and all of the sudden it’s the end of October and I haven’t got a halloween costume or gone apple picking and what’s the fucking point of living somewhere with seasons and foliage when I don’t take advantage of it! what’s wrong with me!

métaboliser l'année

My scorpio friend and I are obsessed with symbolic gestures, reminders of the life we’re working toward and actively living in. She shared with me that she likes to start processing the end of the year in November, so that December with all of it’s special days and rituals can be an autopilot month – she calls it indulgent prep work. It can be so easy to get wrapped up in comparisons to a social media “year in review” – again I’m stuck in the cycle of being “too behind,” but what if I got too ahead? A workaround – doing the reflections for the year a month early! We decided that November was for metabolizing – looking back through everything, making room for ease, giving ourselves enough room to just relax into being. Not being mean to ourselves about what actually happens with all of those high stakes holidays. We don’t need to put pressure on ourselves to imbue them with extra magic and never meet the expectation. Our winter rituals are meant to fill our shorter darker days with light and warmth and community. What would it look like to make that the only priority?

Rest & slowness requires sitting with the incomplete, allowing a room to be emptied before rushing to fill it back up again. Magic loves a void, new patterns form from the abyss, etc.

new year ~ new moon

Fast forward to this February: I found myself burned out already, stringing days together and just trying to get through to the next event. I was in my friend’s brooklyn apartment when I realized I had to back out of something because I started noticing my limbs turn against me, my body getting sore. I had to turn around on a “yes” that I actually wanted to show up for, but my body needed me to let it have a “no.”

I remembered the last time I was cat sitting in the same apartment, it was a lunar eclipse in November. I had a breakthrough in rewriting the story I have about myself that I am difficult. I said out loud and in writing that I will no longer be engaging with the narrative that people can never do anything right around me.

hope exists between boundaries

My desire to be loved often outweighs my desire to be understood.

Autonomy feels out of reach when I’m stuck in patterns of self betrayal and afraid to communicate my needs. I tend to put the cart before the horse, imagining scenarios when I haven’t even figured out how to communicate with myself. My boundaries are for me and not for anyone else (scary). They’re about how I will engage with my own thoughts and actions and body moving forward and much less about how I expect any real or imaginary other to engage with me.

Boundaries can look like a gentle prayer. They can be soft and grey and written in pencil so you can move them around if you receive new information. I am working to stop and check in with myself before saying yes to something; I will try to say no to things that aren’t aligned with my values & interests. Some days it will be easier to take my time and some days I will say yes when I mean no. I won’t beat myself up about it. I will anticipate a kind response to my kind no, remembering that kindness is always possible. If the no does not feel kind, it is not my fault. Practice.

letting the cold air touch ☁

I think we are still in a season of metabolizing, lingering in the final bit of cold air that November brings. The cold air comes and goes every year and instead of seeing it as a weight of sadness, I’m trying to think of it like a fresh reminder of how it feels to fill up my lungs. Big, deep, COLD inhale touching the inside of my body; how easy it is to forget what it feels like. For the rest of the season, I’m practicing taking in slow breaths of cold air, relishing that first drink of water in the morning - the long cold gulp you feel going through you system. A splash of cold water on your face to remind yourself of the forgiveness and the coldness touching whatever moment you’re in.

NOVEMBER THINGS 〰️〰️

Had plenty of “me” time, gave Laura a sparkly blue guitar for her birthday, took a disappointing ceramics class in kingston, tried all of the vegetarian options at Taco Bell, spent as much time as possible with my family cat, said goodbye to said cat.

✶ Took some family photos of some kids I’ve been photographing since they were babies ✿ Spent a day making promo photos at the 14th Street Y ✿ Photographed so many cuties at Arti & Maya's Diwali Party at the Bell House ✿ Ran around NYC for a few hours with Dee Poku to document a series of dinner parties for WIE suite ✿ Photographed Tia’s new space in Williamsburg ✿ Made some band photos with Upstate ✿ Realized there was dust on my sensor & forgot to get it fixed until now ✿ Obviously did way to many things for a month dedicated to metabolizing, forgot that was the intention, returned to it! ✶

an excerpt from Hitha Palepu’s newsletter, a hibernation meditation by aiden arata, the different ways you abandon yourself shared by fariha roisin, cat cohen on how to read a book when there’s a tv nearby, alex testere on respecting your rest & going dormant ❀

⋰ If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.  

This newsletter was written in the Munsee Lenape & Schaghticoke territory.  To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.ca ⋰