days of slow, cold and grey (erin jean warde)
When I’m away, I want to be away. And when I’m present, I want to be present. I want to be where I am. I want to be in rhythm.
days of slow, cold and grey
Today is cold — winter weather alert cold. After the trauma of the blizzard years ago in Texas, it’s fair to say that winter weather alerts make me anxious.
But, more than anxiety, they slow me down. Maybe it’s the profound vitamin D deficiency, but all the caffeine in the world cannot get me up and going when it is cold and grey.
I typically wake up before my alarm. Sometimes only a few minutes before, even sometimes the minute before it might go off, but either way, I usually beat it. Today, I woke up to the alarm (it sounds like birds chirping, which is nicer than a buzzer, but has made me less kind to the sound of birdsong). Even more indicative of how cold affects me: I went back to sleep. Only for a few minutes, but still. I never go back to sleep.
I think often about the world of hustle we are in, mostly because I am trying to pattern a life that is not driven by hustle, while simultaneously being a self-employed business owner who has to, in some ways, hustle in order to keep a roof over my head. The crux is always: How do I keep a roof over my head without losing my integrity in the process? A question I’ll likely ask until I meet God face to face and finally get the answer.
I can’t help but wonder, on days of slow, cold and grey, if part of my resistance to hustle comes from a desire to live in a way connected to nature. Because the slow, cold and grey, isn’t a metaphor: it’s grey outside, it’s cold outside, and the birds that typically dance on my patio are nowhere to be found. Even my cats haven’t had a single zoomy; they are somehow sleeping even more than usual, which is saying something. The birds and cats know not to hustle, and yet they are fed. Am I not just as valuable as they are? Am I not just as worthy of slow?
Why am I so surprised to find that I’ve slowed to the same beat as the air I breathe and earth I stand on? Maybe because our society has turned every last day of our lives into a day when we might be called to labor. Maybe because our society has lost connection to the cycles of nature, and it shows.
When I made the big decision to start my own business, I had a vision for myself: I’d be traveling more, because I could work from anywhere. My phone is set up as a high powered hotspot, so if necessary, I could do a Zoom call from my car during a road trip. I could see the world without taking so much time off from work.
But as I have gotten settled into this way of life for me, I’m not traveling for fun and working at the same time. I’m not keeping my calendar open so I can keep getting calls, even when I’m away. Now, certainly I can do this — and I might. It’s good to have these options and I love having them.
But more often than not, when I’m away, I want to be away. And when I’m present, I want to be present. I want to be where I am. I want to be in rhythm. I want to build a life in which I can follow the exuberant joy of summer and spring, and give myself into the slow of a cold winter day.
May you discern how to be where you are, and how to find a rhythm that brings you deep peace.
With care,
EJW
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out of office
I completely mis-read my calendar last week, so my dates were off. Please note that I will be out of office February 6-19. I said one week, but I’m gone for two! For this reason, I won’t have posts for the next 2 weeks, and I have changed the reading schedule for Braiding Sweetgrass to take this into consideration. You can see the adapted reading schedule below! Thank you so much for understanding. <3
We are reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Here’s the reading schedule in pages, by the week:
Week of…
January 30 — 98-117
February 6 — out of office
February 13 — out of office
February 20 — 118-155
February 27 — 156- 201
March 6 — 202-240
March 13 — 241-276
March 20 — 277-300
March 27 — 301-347
April 3 — 348-384