Solstice Logic

When I woke up that first morning, the trees were dancing. 

I could see that even without my glasses.

I fell back into my pillows, smiling at their dance.

~~

A shade under five years ago, when I swapped Amsterdam’s quaint canals and tiny streets for the stillness and peace of Vancouver Island, I had a vision.

Not a hallucination, but a vision for how I wanted to live moving forward.

I wanted to live with Mother Nature.

I wanted to learn her rhythms. 

I wanted to sync cycles. 

So I began learning solstice logic: winter stillness, spring bloom, summer vibrancy, autumn reflection.

Which was easier said than done, as I’d soon discover. 

Raised in a world that never sleeps and moves faster by the day, there’s a subtle, underlying insistence that you just gotta keep going. Move faster. Do more. Hurry!

Aligning with solstice logic means deconditioning that cultural hand-me-down. 

When I was running The Wizards of Wordcraft, not making the goal for every quarter into some derivative of “growth” was impossible. That too needed unlearning. 

And I had to build trust that this slower rhythm could be a viable way to live.

So for a while, syncing with Mother Nature was something I thought about more than I lived. I wrote some bits and pieces. I thought plenty more. And yet with each season that passed, I went a little deeper, synced a little tighter.

Now here we are.

Not at 100% sync, but definitely above 88%. 

Enough to notice the scenery shifting.

Enough to notice that nature isn’t just scenery.

Enough to notice that nature is a cycle we can model our own lives on, that nature embodies a rhythm we can follow, that she offers a myth we can study. 

After all, her forests are cathedrals. The earth’s own lungs, without which we’d all surely perish. Her rains are baptism, washing away dirt and grime, the physical and the energetic. Her storms destroy, but leave the canvas for a new chapter.

She embodies my kink for paradox like no other. A mad chef pairing the roar of a lioness with the teensy drop of nectar you’ll find in the heart of a honeysuckle flower.

Who does this?!

Then there’s the glow of moonlight on fresh fallen snow, the immersive silence of those winter nights, and erupting volcanoes.

And how could you not adore the stormy evenings-turned-blood orange sunrises?

So I’ve learned that Fall is time for harvesting the fruits of labour and love, for pruning away all that is no longer needed, and for writing the latest season into myth.

Happy October 17th, and a lovely fall to you.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander