Happy Wednesday! Here's 1 teaching, 2 questions, and 3 resources to explore this week! 1. TeachingWe all know the four seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. But if you live in the Northeast of the United States, you might know a fifth: the mud season. Existing sometime between the depths of Winter and the emergence of Spring, the mud season occurs when the snowpack begins to melt but the lower layers of ground remain frozen, unable to receive any water attempting to percolate down. The result: miles of deep, squishy, squelchy mud. My friend James A. Pearson speaks of this in-between time: "It’s a season of limbo. Too warm to stay huddled inside. But too muddy to get very far. Too cold to plant. But late enough that crops need starting." In his poem, "The Mud Season," he invites us to explore our own inner mud seasons. Patience darling,
it's still too early
to trust the season
with that tenderness you hold
in your globed hands.
I can feel it, too—
the yearning to plant
your fingers in the warming earth
and release what's so alive in you
into the scrum of all life.
But the ground's still frozen
beneath the mud.
And winter on its way out
will take with it anything
that opens too soon.
So hold your longing
a little longer
in the sheltered care of your body,
like soft green starts
on the windowsill of your heart,
seeds from the tree
of good and evil.
2. Questions
3. Resources
Sending you good vibes, Andrew P.S. Tomorrow night is my guided journaling event, An Evening of Asking Questions! If you're interested in becoming more acquainted with your inner questions, sign up to attend this 60-minute virtual event! |
Weekly frameworks and practices to help you take meaningful action in gentle and sustainable ways.
Hey Reader, A quick request: as we come to the close of the year, I have a reader survey for you! It’ll only take a couple minutes and will help inform what The Wednesday 1-2-3 looks like going forward. 📝 Please complete this short 2024 Reader Survey (And in case it helps: there's a cute tardigrade gif at the end of the survey 😂) Last week I was talking with a friend about burnout – specifically “activist burnout.” He mentioned how folks who engage in activism often go full-speed ahead until...
Hey Reader, At the bottom of today’s email is a free 25-minute mini-workshop I recorded for you. It’s all about how we hold the charge of this moment – the heaviness, fear, unease, and discomfort of it all – in a gentle and intentional way. Just wanted to make sure you saw it 🙂 Alright – onward to today’s prompt: A couple weeks ago, I wrote that we are collectively living in the midst of a disillusioning moment. I defined this experience as: A moment when the illusion of “how the world works”...
Hey Reader, With Thanksgiving Day tomorrow for those of us in the United States, I thought it would be a good time to bring back the Consent/Closeness Matrix, which I first shared about a year ago. Designed by my colleague Catherine Quiring, the Consent/Closeness Matrix is a tool for helping us understand the stories we carry within us and their origins. (If you can't see the image above, you can view it here.) As you look at the matrix, you’ll notice two axes: Low consent - high consent...