Nature’s Ornaments As A Gift Of The Season
Greetings Reader!
I’m getting this out a bit late on this particular Thursday, and thank you for your patience, and for reading!
Unusually balmy temps today in eastern Washington—after a night of harrowing winds gusts—meant my day followed a different order than normal.
Which I’m mentioning to encourage our collective flexibility in being guided as we can by our surroundings, of prioritizing going outdoors for a bit when the sun is full on a winter day, for a walk or for tea or to enjoy the air without a gigantic heavy jacket on.
How are you savoring outdoor experience this season? I’d love to hear and try it myself.
Cheers,
Jennifer
Founder, Ordinary Nature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Weekly Reflection 🌿
- Weekly Practice ☀️
- Free Audio Series 🎧
- Little Tender Things 🥀
WEEKLY REFLECTION
Nature’s Ornaments As a Gift of the Season
Jennifer Ruth Keller
As we head towards Winter Solstice and Christmas, some may be feeling the extremities of the season. Winter as a clearing space, a time of rich darkness and quiet, is upon us. At the same time, the buzz of extra gatherings and festive celebrations increases.
Some of us thrive through those juxtapositions. Some of us may get fatigued by the navigation. There is no right and wrong when it comes to the rhythm of life that serves you, that lets you feel aligned with your core self, that lets you be with others as you most wish to be.
The juxtapositions of the season can extend beyond schedule hustle and crisp, still mornings. Recently an acquaintance of mine expressed how she was having a hard time knowing how to enjoy the array of Christmas lights on her street, when difficult news, the evidence of cruelty toward others, and a variety of suffering could be seen at every turn.
For me, and what I’ll offer here, is the idea that nature relationship allows us to dwell with the juxtapositions and potential contradictions of the season without needing to fix them, or erase them, or make them anything other than what they are.
Spaciousness with nature, in nature, offers the possibility of ventilation and dilation: We can pause, and slow down, and let open into the air all of the complexity we live amidst.
Not because the spaciousness will solve the problems, or gloss the complexities with nice shiny wrapping paper. But because allowing, and not negating the juxtapositions of the world, can be a first step in an evolving process of de-centering our own experience. Of opening up to the possibility that we live in a field which will ask us to discern in ways where paradox is the norm, not the exception, or an aberration.
Yes, there are real problems, and forms of suffering, which call for us to act within the world as best we can, to be of service beyond our own temporary interests.
And also: the capacious, mixed character of nature—its inclusion of processes and possibilities more subtle and varied than human-only or machine minds can conjure—invites us into an openness, a pliancy, where marvelling at the Christmas lights, and witnessing real suffering without turning away, can become a continuous motion of the heart.
WEEKLY PRACTICE
A busy season calls for a simple practice:
Stroll outside. Let yourself have at least 15 minutes without a plan or destination or a text interruption.
What gifts of the season—a.k.a. Nature’s Ornaments—do you see?
Give them space in your attention, your breath, your heart. And hold them with you as you move within the daily realities of human life in a messy world.
Free Audio Series!
Need a bit of support to open more spaciousness? I have a free 3-part audio series I’ve recorded — you can take it with you outside, or practice inside by a window. A few of you have tried this series already, but I don’t think it ever gets old.
If you click the button, you’ll be asked for your email, and that’s just to prompt the 3-day series of emails and recording links to head to your inbox. No catch. No charge. Just my voice in your ear for some gentle guidance. (~15 minutes per practice.)
Please note: If you’re unable to use audio-led practices let me know and I can offer a visual rendering/transcription.
Free Audio Series: Create Calm & Clarity This Season
LITTLE TENDER THINGS
Rain-pelted, three days.
In the shrub-steppe, spring temps.
We think it’s a season of winding down, and closing.
And sometimes we’d be wrong.
