The winter quiescence

I've just started to read Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin.

Just the forward, so far, by Thomas Berry.

He writes of "the springtime singing of the birds, the summertime showers, the autumn ripening, and the winter quiescence."

Quiescence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 may refer to:

• In fluid mechanics, it refers to the state of a fluid that lacks any movement
• The G₀ phase of a cell in the cell cycle; quiescence is the state of a cell when it is not dividing
• In neuron bursting, it refers to the quiet phase of a spike train when a neuron is not emitting bursts or singlets
• In plants, it is the non-active state of a seed in which the only requirement for seed germination is water and oxygen; Contrast with Dormancy
• In behavioral neuroscience or zoology, quiescence refers to a behavior where an animal is vigilant but relaxed and immobile. This may be related to a recuperative response after an encounter with a predator
• In volcanology, when an active volcano is not actually erupting
• An electronic amplifier or filter is said to be in a quiescent state when no signal is applied to its input
• Quiescence search, In Game searching (adversarial search) in artificial intelligence, a quiescent state is one in which a game is considered stable and unlikely to change drastically the next few plays
• In computer science is a data item that is not actively being changed

I feel this. Do you? Right now. All I want is to stay home. Why go out and do all these things and see all these people when I could stay home and practice piano, and cook, and read, and feel like I have contentment and everything I need in abundance?

And even that is fairly busy. I could go further into not-doing. The autumn leaves are almost all gone. The winter quiescence is drawing me in...

Seasonal Rhythms

Going through old notebooks and found this from Christmas.

The time in between Christmas and New Year is for rest and retreat.

It may be actual retreat; yoga, vipasana. It might be an at-home retreat; shutting the doors and quietly pottering away with the remaining December tasks in an unhurried way, and taking long rests. It could be going away somewhere peaceful just the 1/2/3/4/5 of you. Whatever. Rest and retreat. Like the earth does then.

Then New Year needs a Ritual. On new year yoga retreats we get given a list of questions to ponder on the 29th. On the 31st we do a partypiece party, where everyone does a party piece, which is diverse and surprising and delightful. Then we write down the things we are choosing to leave behind in the departing year on little pieces of paper, and at midnight we burn the paper in the fire. Then we talk together about what we're letting into the coming year. I've done it twice with Alaric and each time it has felt special and seems to have had a really nice impact on my life.

The two months of the year where most of us (ideally) put the least energy into trade are August and December. In August we put most of our energies into the land, and in December we put most of our energies into our relationships, from our relationship with our world and community, through our friends, family and partners, to our relationships with our selves.

Both periods precede New Starts and both are full of holiday, festival and celebration.