remedies for the darkest days ☕️
(especially when living with limitations) hot cacao, weather, winter energy, the creative process, dreaming, Other ways of Being, season syncing, some bts thangs +++
oh-oh… who unleashed Ethel?! ⬆️🥴
☎️ hi darlings! Dionne and Ethel (my alter ego) here! hope you enjoy today’s transmission of a space to land! First of all just wanted to thank those who attended the co-working-co-creating gloriousness on Wednesday, it’s such a pleasure to be in your company. If you want to join us next week, head here!
Do you know paid subscribers get extra treats? We’re having a freewrite gathering on 21st December plus discounts to my public community events (virtual winter retreat details coming soon!) if you’d like to upgrade (sings in Beyonce) and support my work, you can do so via the button below. i appreciate you! 💜
Weather is one of my special interests. I spend a fair amount each day checking details including pressure, dew point, wind speed + direction, sunrise, sunset and hours of light. It’s certainly become more of an ‘extra special’ interest since i started living in Norway (more context here!)
And my weather interest isn’t relegated to the place i happen to be located at any given time. It extends to different parts of the world, such as various locations in Norway, Lisbon (pre-pandemic, December was when i’d take my much-loved annual work-play sabbaticals…) the South of France, and many other parts of the world. I guess i’m revisiting past lives, places i’ve lived and still live - shoutout to fellow nomads!
At a time when it’s not possible for me to travel, perhaps this is a way i keep the ghosts close. However the checking of factors like weather was also a necessary aspect of tour life, aiding the nightmare packing-preparation-process, ensuring the world was taken care of, considering any inevitability or possibility, which gets complicated when you’re a disabled neurospicy human on the road for long periods of time doing a lot of seemingly ‘different’ things, needing to ensure i had all the equipment such as: diffuser, ingredients for warm cacao ceremonies and cooked lunches for guests, enough energy balls and tea and flasks and cups for everybody, yoga blocks and bricks and mats and straps and blankets, tarot and guidance cards for me + the collective, enough coloured pens for workshops and coloured paper and glitter too, depending on our creative activity, sometimes home made zines on workshop themes made for people to take home, a speaker, lasers and lighting to set the mood, cleaning products for my own sweep of venues (i take rolling around on the floor very seriously and also: don’t like ick on floors before we do so!) and of course, some kind of sequin clothing.
These are some of the tools i’d be gathering for for weird and wonderful embodiment events as well as for DJing through the night. Reams of organisation checklists calling for every ounce of attention and specificity, needing to hold it together, hold it all, for there was no security blanket or hammock to catch me, such is the way of being independent, there are always plusses and minuses.
Last Sunday, i felt an urge to check the day lengths. I’ve been arranging a virtual event over the past couple of weeks or so (it’s another Winter retreat - deets coming soon!) and timings are a big part of the planning process.
Sidenote on aspects of ‘the creative process’:
…Does anyone else relate to time-planning being a beefy energy nugget when organising? Concepts can usually come to me in their full form, floating planets of possibilities which somehow correlate (in my mind!) Embodiment is a part of everything i ‘do’, so it’s in those moments that i let my brain take a back seat and instead listen and feel for guidance. Music of course has a lot to do with this (inseparable to embodiment imho!) and Bob’s your uncle (what does that MEAN?!) i can usually catch the intention, purpose and vision the thing i want to create. It feels like a natural process. A flow.
…But the logistics?! Whoah, that’s not so easeful. I spend days, weeks, sometimes months agonising over times, dates, and so on. In fact, it’s been over a year i’ve kept a couple of event concepts close, ready to give to the world. But i just don’t know how to time it, especially as i know my people are a global crew (and i appreciate that VERY much, by the way, aren’t you a fascinating and brilliant bunch?)
I suppose this is the difference between running more ‘embodiment focussed’ events compared to art projects, installations and VR worlds…
I digress. Let’s get back to weather, and checking for hours of light in day.
Nature’s remedy for darker days
So i had a hunch we were very close to the nadir of the year. I can feel it on my daily walks, which, if i’m really honest, are keeping me going these days…truly. Getting some kind of light on the back of my eyeballs is feeling so necessary. I don’t want to be indoors despite the cold (it’s cold indoors too as like many others, heating is being rationed and times are hard).
Outside i can find pockets to be awhile, to ground myself whilst the world whirrs. Stand amongst the billowy trees, some newly bare, others clinging to the last leaves, which surprises me, given the utterly weird weather we’ve had this year - the furious heat-drought of summer meant many trees in the area went into shock, for survival, they kicked into gear to rid anything taking much-needed energy to survive, and thus, an early and balmy autumn display of hazel, amber, russet and gilt leaves. And alas, we’ve even lost a fair few trees, a tragedy to be honest, including my favourite massive oak, centuries old, a giant in the neighbourhood, whose arms were so vast, it created an almost under-the-willow-tree experience, where you could stand beneath the boughs and be cocooned in the nook like a hug.
Here she is, magnificent in her beauty. In the times when i was immersed in work duties and couldn’t get out for a longer walk, i’d go to her just to stand beneath for a few minutes to breathe and feel. This photo is from August this year (just days before she was no more 😔) It was quite a moment, which you can gather from this report + some spicy memories archived here
Outside i get to meet some dogs and cats if i’m lucky. Watch the squirrels and pigeons and blackbirds and magpies and crows and sparrows and my favourite curious robin. There’s a particular cat which lives near the sea, and if it’s an especially magical day, they spend time sitting nearby, then approaching, going for my lap and inside my coat, expecting pets galore. It’s honestly the best.
Outside also gives me space to digest my writing from the morning, and contemplate my ‘to do’s, even though i know my energy levels are so very low at the moment. Come 3.30pm i’m almost out, so need to switch to surrendering to bedworld if it’s a ‘no spoons’ day, or to surrendering in other ways, a practice or a gentle chore, perhaps the dopamine will return, but these days i coax, not force.
Daylight has been an urgent resource which has felt like a gamble (the mrmmh or this emoji →🥴 feeling i should be at my desk getting more work done) but it also feels so right to run to the sun/light. When my tank is running close to empty, it’s remedial to be in the elements, wrapped up tightly, remembering who i am in the essence of earthy delights, to be reminded of things happening in their perfect time, to not rush or overdo, as energy is so dearly precious right about now.
I sense so many are close to the edge. I mean, it’s obvious. We’re doing our best to hold on. To keep one foot in front of the other, or even stand still, or sit, or lay down if required. A courageous effort is required to be with the hard stuff. And i hold tremendous awe for those who model this, helping me to remember. There is great wisdom in knowing when things are too much to carry, and instead of pushing through, choosing instead to draw back, release the holding of it all, perhaps even to ask for help. I’m not so great at the last part, instead the shell grotto is where i retreat, but i think it’s progress from where i was before.
This reframing of ‘less Doing more Being’ is still very new for me, despite a good 12 years of practice. Because despite yearning for ease and to be able to take December ‘off’ or slow down, resisting the need to do it all, etc, i’m sure many of you also relate to that it’s not a choice you can make right now. Bills need to be paid, work must get done, even when you are living with limitations. There isn’t support available. You have had to do it alone and you continue, this is the way it is. Although i continue to dream of Other ways of Being. Perhaps even being able to make regular income from my writing one day, which can in turn make it more flexible in being able to continue to offer my projects directly to the community.
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of the great Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and it’s dawning on me just how much free labour i have given over the decades, despite my own hardship and limitations. I don’t regret making a lot of my work free and available and accessible to the people, but it’s been a fascinating realisation to notice how, for many people living with disabilities, particularly those who are black or brown, just what kinds of expectations and entitlement abound. How many expect it from you, despite having means themselves. I mean, i know it and feel it, but it’s so normalised so requires me to take a little step back, Keanu in Bill and Ted style “whoah!” to really soak in the dynamic. And often, it can feel too late, the damage done.
It’s not lost on me the number of encounters i’ve had with people who have demanded my free labour, and who have, from a very limited ‘outside’ perspective, seen my work as being ‘fun’, and ‘something they want to do themselves’ projecting their assumptions about how ‘easy’ i make it seem, and therefore, someone like me (cue dog whistle!) should be grateful and happy to even be doing what i do, and therefore provide cheap or free services, not to mention, emotional labour placed upon me in the process.
Whilst in contrast, many of my peers from more privileged backgrounds, and often those just starting out in the field (not that this means they are ‘lower’ or ‘less’ in my opinion but for context) would be offered paid work (and often paid more), making money from my free labour which was sometimes-often copied (i know, the audacity right?), whilst i gazed in confusion at their mimicry, too tired to take on another battle, because surviving another day was the priority, figuring out how to pay the rent or eat or access healthcare, you know, the simple things. All of this whilst trying to keep my blinkers on what i was trying to create and share in the world. i honestly don’t know how i’ve done it sometimes…
(There’s a bigger essay here on the power dynamics of copycats btw so parking this here for now but there is more to be said!)
I mean, we know that twice as many black women are likely to be on zero hour contracts for example, making it hard to access healthcare and/or childcare if relevant.
I am reminded of a quote by our beloved bell hooks which has been recirculating recently (which i love to see)
I have long been yearning for space to unfurl. Learning how to Be pause/loaf/lime/create space. To un-do. Resist the ‘busy’ neurosis. Reject the ableist, transphobic, capitalist, white supremacist agendas, and instead daydream awhile. Center Being vs Doing. Here’s a couple from the archives:
Learning how to Be - a blog post + podcast from 2017
Stop the glorification of busy (please!) - a blog post from 2014
I hold space to recognise the complexities and sheer magnitude of work it takes to persist in my desire for freedom and ease and tenderness for us all. As i said, it’s been a good 12 years of dedicated daily personal practice for me, and the realities of not just living with limitations but recognising the very real societal constraints which make for hostile conditions. It’s been decades longer of finding a way to even begin actively dismantling the hooks of hierarchies and dominant power structures which have created extra obstacles on the journey.
I am not in competition with anyone. I want us all to be free. I also want to break the cycle of my own burnout, and part of that is to acknowledge i need my life and my work, to fit my reality. And to build it accordingly.
My walks are a tiny radical remembering for me that although society values my ‘doing’ and me masking and ‘pushing through’ my limits despite living as a neurospicy disabled person with a chronic illness from a working class background. Yet i am WORTHY of ease. Rest. Softness. Tenderness. Joy! And i must make this for myself, by any means necessary. I hope you might resonate with this inherent knowing and feeling of your worthiness too.
And yes, also holding space for the complexity that is, needing to survive in this world. To stay warm. Fed. Able to be ok enough so i can go forth and create and hold space for Others and create the things i’d like to see so Others might find ways to feel more free. And that we’re getting free together (it’s a collective process).
We hold multiple things in our hands at once.
I recognise giving myself grace to be in constant process with these things is key. To be processing in public too, despite being shy, but also protective, at least more than i have been, of what is for me, what is for my inner circles, the people who value me, my Patrons, supporters and community. And releasing the heavy obligatory feeling that i should be giving myself to anyone who demands.
I can no longer push through the way i did before (and paid the price)
…I wonder what an alternative could look and feel like?
I dream of reciprocity. Of care for each other. Of being more than keeping my head above water. Of accommodations being met as a given. Of care and justice and integrity and liberation and exchange not kept by a tally, but determined by need and given generously. Community care. Interdependence again, i guess!
🌈 What do you dream of?
Ever returning to the weather and hours of daylight as a guidance system
At the moment, Brighton has almost 8 hours of daylight. The tiredness i felt in my bones was accurate, of course our biological and circadian rhythms are inseparable from nature. The myth of the 21st December being the darkest day isn’t quite accurate for all in the northern hemisphere, by the time we reach the winter solstice, we’ve already passed the darkest day here, so i was curious how daylight tallied between other places, namely, places in Norway (i remember at times in Bergen, you were lucky to feel three hours of daylight during winter, depending where you were in position to the mountains!)
Sunset in Brighton is paused at 15:55 for the next few days until 18th December, when we gradually begin to gain a minute more of light. In Oslo, where there’s just under 6 hours of light a day, sunset’s at around 15:14 (still a few days of earlier nights before things change on 20th December). I contemplate this symbolism of the daily rhythms seemingly grinding to a halt, a limbo of our sunset times, a cue for the darkness to move in, a moment where time seems to slow down, and nature is giving us messages to do the same.
Do we heed the call?
interval for a hot chocolate
Obviously, there are other things which help with darker days. I’m back on my afternoon cacao fix (i’m not drinking coffee at the moment but that’s not cause i think coffee is bad fyi, rather a note to self of what’s nourishing my system most during these days, which might be different for someone else so take or leave)
Would you like an updated ‘official’ recipe? I used to make recipe cards for the community so you dig, let me know!
remedies for darker days - further explorations + resources for the journey
Here’s a podcast from the archives where i share some further ideas and explorations for dealing with darker days. You can find it here along with the shownotes.
Listen & subscribe on your favourite platform: Apple Podcasts / Stitcher / Overcast / Tune In / acast / Spotify / Soundcloud / Google Podcasts
Search for episode 83 to listen!
✨🤖✨🦕✨👡✨🔮✨💅🏾✨🤷🏽♀️✨
inspiration Station / things i’m holding with regard
Stromae, always! 💕
a place i like to linger when comparing weather in different places
i rewatched one of my fave childhood series Moondial recently- does anyone remember this from 1988? (Feel i might need to make a dedicated post for this one as it explains a lot!)
do any of you remember this snake as cold weather praxis? shoutout to fellow friends living in draughty circumstances (since 1980!) 🥴
Related to above and also to fellow renters stuck in undesirable conditions out of their control: genuinely, how does anyone afford to buy a house without any help? i don’t understand (but then again, i really do, because having some kind of financial support from family is the only way, surely? so what now?) i’d love for everybody to see this - a sensational mic drop!
Healing the inner child with AI?! interested! (sidenote: i studied AI at the turn of the millennium which is kind of funny to think about now, and also nostalgic, cause although tech has of course ‘evolved’, it was a deeply profound experience for me… anyway, that’s me, a robot nerd!)
When i think about creative collaboration, this is it! 🥺💜
Fancy practicing with me? Come flow with me gently. Here’s a video called mellow flow + accompanying playlist. It’s a movement exploration to unwind tension, any time of day.
And so, we’ve reached the end of the journey.
How was it for you? i’d really love to hear from you, if only a wave and a hello, an emoji or a song, some thoughts, questions, dreams or contemplations! It would be lovely to know if you’re out there, it gives me fizzy feelings to connect with you. And if you dig, perhaps share with your friends! I’ve always been about the word of mouth vibe cause it feels real. Feel welcome to screenshot and tag me on socials. I’d appreciate it so much.
Thank you for Being here.
Take care of you.
Dionne 💜
🌶 EXTRA TINGS 🌶
📡 co-working-co-creating livestream event this Wednesday
🎧 my podcast i Feel For You
📹 practice with me yoga, movement, meditation, somatics + embodiment videos, audio + events irl + online
🌈 1+1 creative coaching booking limited slots for 2023
💌 the Digest stay up to date on upcoming event dates + offerings
✌🏽 work with me book me for: podcast interviews, VR projects, art installations, DJing, talks, festivals, creative coaching + consultations, creative workshops + embodiment events etc
Your substack posts are a feast. So much goodness and inspiration and tenderness. Thank you for sharing so much from so many magical parts of you.