fall rituals

dispatch 52

Hiya all,

Thank you for the kindness around my last distress dispatch (TM)…while I hate that other folks are also moving through it right now I am glad to not be alone. I am feeling much better and adjusting this week, moving into a new role in the work life and all of the practice in boundary-setting that that brings.

Today’s essay is about ritual, which has long been one of my favorite topics.

I also can’t let this first of November pass without wishing my beloved the happiest of birthdays. I am so very glad that you were born and that we found our way to each other. If you know Max, go ahead and send them some birthday wishes or a song you love.

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Just a few weeks sober, Fall in Philly 2017

fall rituals

Fall is for ritual. I love this time of year. It is the time when the place where I live is most beautiful. It’s the time of my birthday and my soberversary which always brings feelings of renewal, reflection, and change. Over the last few years, I have been intentional in embracing the darkness and inside-ness that winter brings as a necessary part of the annual cycle rather than something to be endured, but I still love this season best.

 Something in the air and the leaves makes this a time for slowing down, introspection, and ritual. I see the part of me that has been running ahead for the last few months frantically future-planning and I want to catch them by the toe, bring them back to me, bring them to a pause. 

My kitchen is cool again after the wet summer heat that envelopes this old house each July. It’s once again the place where I feel happiest. It is where I am at my most creative, working on something for the people I love or for my own curiosity with the hours stretching ahead of me. This is a prime place for ritual for me, a space that makes time, and all that comes with it, disappear.

And I have wanted to disappear lately, into myself. I have been consumed by worry and future thinking in a way that I know is unhealthy for me. When I am in my head thinking about what will happen next month, I am avoiding something. When I am thinking about what may happen, I don’t want to feel what is happening right now. Instead, I gesture at some hypothetical future in which I am sure that I will have control. I am often called a strategic person, but it’s just hypervigilance, a vicious cycle and it makes me exhausted and depressed. 

The changes I have made to my work life this year have been needed but also terrifying and groundless. I don’t know what the hell I am doing. I removed something that was making me miserable and while it definitely helped, it did not fix everything. Sometimes I fixate on things I cannot control, always sure that control would make me feel better. But much like removing alcohol from my life did not fix every tiny thing, my listlessness right now won’t be solved by simply removing one toxic workplace. 

These last few weeks have been something of a placeholder, first a whirlwind to distract me from the scary choice to quit my job, then enough space to rest in between the obligations. I have found that having more time does not light me up if I do not use it well. I thought I had changed everything but I haven’t. These learnings are cyclical and I keep coming back to this one. 

Fall is a time of beautiful self-annihilation. It’s a time of vibrant color in service of decay and endings. And that has fit this season of my life, a moment of bright bravery and then an overwhelming need to rest. A moment to reckon with myself.

And so I am coming back to ritual on these shortening Fall days when everything is soggy and starting to gray. The leaves are not on fire in the way that they were two weeks ago, and that reminds me that no matter how much I want it to, time has not disappeared. That makes the savoring of it even more important.

The only solution I know then is to practice holding small moments close. To slow down the act of making a pot of tea. Drink it from the tiny, ornate teacup just because this is the only thing in my life that I can control right now, and why not make it beautiful? It’s baking the coffee cake my mother baked every Christmas morning, nostalgic things that feel like a hug across time. It’s curling up small under a wool blanket, lighting taper candles on my altar, rubbing oil into skin. One of the surest signs that I am not doing well is when I am choosing efficiency over joy.

There is a spell/poem by adrienne maree brown that I love. When I feel my brain squirrels start to scurry, I repeat it slowly:

if you can’t see the small

you will keep leaping from built thing

to built thing

begging the sky to rain only on you

you’ll become a tyrant,

reaching, shuffling the cards until you see only your own vision

massive

but no one else can see it

May we sit instead within the building of each thing. May we choose slow, slow, slow. May we craft our bones of ritual so that we may stand tall. May we release the vision in favor of the magic.

Assorted, rad thing(s): 

A section of this newsletter where I share what I have been reading, watching, or otherwise consuming lately.

• How to light the dark months: A manifesto for winter light by Katherine May on Substack: I am a huge huge huge fan of Katherine May’s work and read this post while still in bed on a cold, dark morning. I got up and lit every candle in the house and it changed everything. Winter is coming, friends. Finding little ways to ease the transition has been really helpful for me.

• First Aid Kit - Mind, Body, & Soul Care by Erin Jean Warde on Substack: My friend and resident, reigning Queen of Kits TM shared her suggestions on building a custom First Aid Kit to help you cope with the world. Whether you’re in recovery or just having a time (and really, aren’t we all having a time right now?), her suggestions give you concrete ways to ensure you have tools to support you when you need them. I loved this piece!

• Enigma Variations by André Aciman: No one writes infatuation, lust, and longing like Aciman (probably most famous for Call Me By Your Name). The book follows Paul from his first childhood crush and through the loves that manifest throughout his life in various forms. It wasn’t my favorite of his works I’ve read, but it was still beautiful. Also…this is the first book I finished in awhile! Feels good to be back!

I hope November is treating you kindly! See you next week!

with love,

lisa

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