J A N U A R Y 2024

Happy New Year.

How are you? How are you REALLY? I’m curious if anyone feels FULL and rejuvenated after the holidays? It’s always a mixed bag for me. As hard as I try to be conscious and intentional, I still feel challenged to feel in alignment with the nature of winter.

I am ready for less, slower, silence, rest, allowing, daily walks in nature w my dogs…. Just craving all the medicine of WINTER. It seems like a cruel joke that the most hectic time of the year, the HOLIDAZE, are smack dab in the midst of winter. It’s counter to winter’s call to quiet, rest and inward reflection. I consciously did WAY less than ever before. It is a RADICAL act of COURAGE and to really LISTEN and HONOR your own nature during the winter months. For example, choosing to not even celebrate Christmas any more. No decorations. No Christmas cards. To do fewer gifts and not wrap them all because I just ran out of energy. To NOT go to parties. To listen to my natural rhythms and NOT override the deep call to REST and QUIET inner reflection. It’s a complete disruption that also takes lots of energy. It disappoints others. It can rock the boat when others have expectations of you to be the person you were in years past.

(A photo I took of a decomposing Sunflower. I found it to be so beautiful in its surrender to a natural process. Hollowed out and brittle and yet…still standing. A messenger of sorts. It pulls me in and I WONDER, what is my relationship to death and dying? What needs to die in me so that something else can bloom and grow? The complexity of it all and how we often avoid it and don’t see the beauty in it. I lean in and get curious about it. Dropping any preconceived notions about it. how can I see this with child like wonder….where will that orientation take me….allowing a change in perspective and to be humbled by its messages.)

It is also, deeply satisfying and inspirational to others.

I’ll also say, even with my choice to consciously do less this season, I still found myself doing too much at times. There is no perfect way. I just know I improved by a percentage. Baby steps. Experimentation. Following the curiosity. This is the path.

In Creativity nature serves as a teacher. Through seasons, light and dark, cycles of the moon, tides, flowing rivers, dying plants, germinating seeds, blooming…the list goes on. I am really devoted to the practice of allowing nature to teach me about myself and my cycles, seasons, light and dark. What’s dying in me? What’s germinating? What’s growing? What season are we in and how can I align my energy and work cycles to them?

(The color and texture draw me in and serve as a muse for future pallets.)

Currently, we are in WINTER. Winter’s medicine asking us to slow down and go inward. It asks of us to nourish and resource ourselves and allow what needs to die off to die off. We have less light and more dark.It is NOT a great time for OUTPUT or PRODUCTIVITY. It serves as a time to gather inspiration and fill up so that when Spring comes we are ready to engage with the CHAOS that is Spring. One season, if honored and listened to will serve the next. This is the Law of Nature. It is stable and true. So, why have we been so conditioned to turn away from it? I am curious if that is the reason for so much Mental Health instability and well, most of the problems in our world.

My experience in attuning myself to these cycles has ABUNDANTLY shifted me in ways I am consistently surprised and deeply delighted by. It’s not something that is unique to me. I know this to be true of many creatives and people who spend lots of time in nature. It soothes our nervous system. It awakens our senses and quiets the mind. Landing us in a receptive space and deepining our ability to listen to that STILL, SMALL VOICE WITHIN.

In Rick Rubin’s book, “The Creative Act: A Way Of Being”, he says, “There is so much wisdom in nature that when we notice it it AWAKENS possibility within us.It is through COMMUNING with nature that moves us closer to our own nature.”

I have been so moved by my own AWAKENING that I feel very called to share this with others. I contemplate often the world at large and how it is slowly moving us in a direction that is so far from our nature and at a speed that is not natural to us as HUMANS. I feel called to lead others to the call of the WILD. To remember what we are and what we are made of. It is the way I can live in hope in a world that makes me feel hopeless.

On January 14 I am leading a small group through 2 hour exploration of my course, “The Nature of Creativity.” I am so excited about it. I have gotten a lot of feedback from people on IG when I have posted about it. I know from that response that I am onto something. People are CRAVING connection. Connection to themselves, their nature and other people.

My dream is to build a community of people that want to connect deeper to their nature and innate creativity. To plant seeds of curiosity, enchantment and wonder. What would the world be like if we were to courageously live and honor the cycles of nature? What if we all awakened to the possibility of getting off the hamster wheel and reassessing what is sustainable to our own nervous system and inner wisdom.

There is only one way to find out and that is to begin. One step at a time.

The first step is to find ways to engage with nature. so, to put it simply….GO OUTSIDE.

Go outside and go without distractions. Engage with your senses. Allow yourself to be with the thing you are drawn to. For example, bird in flight. Just practice following your curiosity. Allow for the possibility of enchantment and wonder. Remember being a child? Like that.

That’s a start.

If you are intrigued and want to learn more….

I will be offering more classes on this. I will know more about what that will look like after I teach my BETA class this month. So, stay tuned here and on IG. Feel free to reach out to me by way of messaging or commenting below.

Wishing all of you the medicine of winter.

Much love,

L E S L I E