A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement / last chance for Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️

Decorating the Winter Quarters

What is known about Quarters?

If you hang out here regularly, you know that I love the double-meaning of quarters, which in addition to being four segments, of a year (for example), can also be a beautiful and inviting space or a home. Living quarters.

Living quarters. The space where I reside. And also: this period in time is alive, these are living quarters. Aliveness and a place to land at the same time. So beautiful.

It was just solstice last week, and so a new quarter is beginning.

New quarters, renewed quarters

A new quarter is beginning and I am moving into my new quarters — in time, but in my imagination also as a space.

What lives here? What wants to live here?

How do I make this space warm, cozy, welcoming, inviting, spacious, expansive, whatever it needs to be for me and for this incoming time period…?

Let’s find out!

What is known about Winter?

I know that many people reading this are located in the southern hemisphere, where it is the beginning of summer for you, so I trust that you will take the theme of moving quarters, and apply where useful, and feel free to ignore my talk of winter specifically.

Or if you are reading this in the future, you can apply it to wherever you are in your own timeline, of course.

Here where I am, right now, in southern New Mexico, it is a rainy afternoon and I am waiting longingly but patiently for my friend the blue sky to come back to me.

I am listening to music, drinking a hot beverage (chicory and dandelion root with chai fennel syrup and oat milk). Cedar tips are burning, my space smells of the forest. Appreciating feeling cozy and contained.

The days are getting longer. And I am thinking about what I want from these winter quarters, what I want to experience within this space.

A paradox but maybe not

The paradox of solstice that is maybe not a paradox at all:

Solstice is both the doorway into winter (here we are, let’s go, it’s happening, Winter Is Here), while at the same time it is the marking of the turning point at which the days begin to get lighter and longer again.

The deepest dive into winter, fully landing here in the [YOU ARE HERE] of this season, and the welcoming of the returning of the light.

So we have three months of a quarter, aka winter quarters, to play with both the gathering of the light while also experiencing the depths of the cold, dark season of dream-seeding, wishing-and-waiting, letting things percolate until spring…

I always found this combination a little frustrating or grating, like how am I supposed to be excited about longer days when winter just started?

But somehow this year I find it soothing. To land in winter, saying I AM HERE, and smiling as the light begins to collect. This is doable. We can do this.

What is known about Decorating?

I love interior design, I love a blank slate, I love a Begin Again, I love a good Rearranging.

The winter quarters for me are about coziness and baking, about rituals that sustain and replenish.

This time period for me is also for training hard, running some fun experiments, and trying on some wishes for size.

And about journaling on wishes and projects that might take shape later in the year when there is more light, more energy, more oomph for doing….

The space of newness is for naming

Again, it used to bother me that there is no doing energy (for me, at least) at the same time of year that there is a new year and a new beginning. It seems so incongruent to resolve anything when the mood is one of hibernation.

And now I like it. It works for me this year for this to be a wishing time, and a planting of seeds.

The newness is for naming. And so I am naming (wishes, hopes, dreams, ideas, projects-to-be). Naming without any expectation of seeing immediate results or any results.

The doing will come later, in right timing. For now, I can drop my wishes into the wishing place and let them bloom, like spices, while cooking, or like flowers, in spring. I am not in a rush.

Decorating has its own timeline. I am just making space for what can be. There is something beautiful there.

What are the known wishes?

These are wishes both for this quarter of the year from solstice to equinox, and wishes for 2026, the incoming year.

There are wishes related to STRENGTH TRAINING.

There are wishes related to RITUAL.

There are wishes related to GROWTH (as in, not stagnating, flourishing).

There are wishes related to VISIBLE CHANGE, seeing the shifts, or ways to assess what is moving and changing, but I am not going to rush visible change.

I am wishing for visible change, and also: I am not going to rush visible change

Because, like we said, winter is for trusting the seeds to do what seeds know how to do, and trusting the process of becoming that is taking place behind the scenes, beneath the surface.

There is a time and a pace for readying, and I have a lot more patience and respect for the work of readying than I used to when I was younger, and this is interesting to me.

Okay, let’s review these beautiful wishes, while releasing the need to see anything shift immediately…

When we say STRENGTH, what kind of Strength is this Strength?

Or: What is known about strength? What is known currently, in this moment, by me, that I know of?

Strength. Balance. Agility. Fluidity. Calm. Stability. Focus. Clarity.

Strength. Balance. Agility. Fluidity. Calm. Stability. Focus. Clarity.

Interesting. What else? It’s about the training element of [Strength Training] even more so than it is about the strength.

Okay! What is this training about? WAX ON WAX OFF. And: All the good kinds of GAINS & GRACE.

Something about: exercício ridículo

I was trying to think of an example of what I meant by the training element of strength training is more important to me than the strength.

And the image that came up was a pistol squat, which I believe is a cross-fit move, but I have seen it in a couple different yoga classes.

I looked up a video about this move to see if there were any clues for me, and there were no clues in the video but there was a perfect clue in the comments: exercício ridículo

I laughed. I love this so much, and also I love how exercício ridículo sounds like a spell…

Wax on wax off

What if i only do Ridiculous Exercises as part of my Nanda Parbat Assassin Training! They’ll never see it coming! Wax on wax off!

Yes, I love this. I love a ridiculous exercise.

I love how hilariously impossible this one feels specifically. I love working towards something impossible, regardless of whether I am ever going to nail it.

Impossible reminds me of the beautiful Feldenkrais concept of “moving from impossible into possible, from possible to easy, from easy to effortless”, with the idea being that you are always somewhere on that continuum, and the point isn’t finishing.

The point isn’t finishing. The point is playing, and expanding what is possible. Yes. A good approach for all wishes.

When we say RITUAL, what kind of Ritual is this Ritual?

Ritual for me is about presence, and about pausing. It is about creating a door or a passage in between moments and experiences.

Ritual is intentionally stopping to say I AM HERE. It is an interruption of pattern to consider how I wish to be in the I-am-here-ness of it it all.

It temporarily pauses the flow to return to a flowier more in-flow flow. It holds us a moment longer in the sexy almost so that we can feel the intention of what we are about to do.

Does any of that make sense? I hope so.

Invoking, naming, returning

Winter rituals for me are about grounding, centering, coziness, and about tending to mental and emotional well-being, because I know I can coast into stagnation, or the go tripping into the pits of despair. Ritual brings me back.

Where am I? Right here right now. What do I want and need in this moment?

Let’s breathe, tune in, find out, reveal what wants to be revealed.

When we say GROWTH, what kind of Growth is this Growth?

Gains, like muscle, or growth like wisdom, or some combination of both? Sure.

I think it goes back again to this felt-sense of rootedness, and the experience of layering on trust. I may not see what is growing in this season, but so many things are readying themselves for growth.

Many things can and will change for the better, can I trust this? Let’s try, as an experiment.

As one of my teachers says, if you can think of your consciousness as a lake, when the lake is calm, everything is really clear.

And when it’s not clear, then the answer is not more commotion and tumult, the answer is notice what’s happening, go inward and reset. Sometimes there are storms, it happens. We breathe and find ground.

There you go. That’s growth.

When we say VISIBLE CHANGE, what kind of Visible Change is this Visible Change?

I know we were just talking about trusting the seeds, and trusting winter to do its work, that this is quite often the period of time in which the change is not visible yet, and that’s okay…

And also the wish named itself so let’s explore it.

I think I like a container of three months (winter to spring, solstice to equinox) because you can feel a palpable difference from one door to the next. It’s not an overwhelming amount of time, it’s a compact container, but there’s room for things to move.

What supports visible change?

For me the big theme right now is tabula rasa. To decorate these quarters, I want to empty them.

That might mean something like closing tabs and emptying the inbox. It might mean taking some things out of my house and donating them. It might mean doing a long, slow, deep yoga session and returning myself to the calm lake of consciousness where everything gets clear.

What can I empty? What can I remove and eliminate in order to illuminate, to support the gathering of the light?

Let’s make some space. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Everything counts. Fractal progress. Small shifts are meaningful shifts. Every step invites newness.

It Solves Itself

What solved itself in December?

My stuck sliding door got fixed! Two different friends came to visit from the Pacific Northwest!

A couple of laundry solutions offered themselves. Most importantly, just in time for my sixth winter out here alone in the mountains, I now have heat in my tiny metal house, or at least in the kitchen.

What solved itself in 2025?

There were so many Glorious Returns. A glorious return to yoga and dance, to jogging, to using my head cushion for posture (I’m wearing it right now), to walking labyrinths, to strength training.

I made new friends.

My terrible heartbreak eased itself while I wasn’t looking.

I want to teach again, which is interesting, much to explore there.

What am I putting into the cauldron of winter wishes?

Grace. Motivation. Loving-Clarity. Wonder.

It solves itself / everything continues to solve itself.

Passion. Enthusiasm. Trust. Care.

A sense of awe and appreciation. Feeling warm and cozy in my thank-you heart.

I want to wake up craving the practices that sustain me, and to welcome them like they welcome me. And when that doesn’t happen, I want to meet myself with all the compassion I can muster.

May it be so. Here we are. Happy decorating. Happy be-ing and seeding and waiting and wishing and trusting what is to come. A breath for all that is possible, and for playing with the impossible while we wait.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.