Prelude to a new year

As we start the next orbit around the sun, let's take a look at the way time actually seems to function in the real, physical world rather than the world in our heads.

One warm evening this summer, we planned a walk to look at the moon. There would be a supermoon in the sky that night, and we decided it would be worth staying up a bit late to walk out in the deep countryside dark to see it.

This far north, the sun doesn’t set until about 10pm in midsummer, so it was close to 11 when we stepped out; even still, it was not quite dark. At first, the moon was hidden behind the black canopy of douglas fir trees ringing the sky. But as we crunched along the gravel towards the road, a window opened up between the branches and there it was, low and glowing.

A supermoon is relatively rare. The moon’s orbit is ellipitical, and the point at which it’s closest to earth is called its perigree. When the moon reaches this point and also happens to be in its full phase, it’s commonly referred to as a supermoon. Funny enough, this term was invented by an astrologer in the 1970s, so there really aren’t precise scientific criteria for what qualifies as a supermoon. But the name is catchy, and it stuck.

It also isn’t really that big a deal, from an observer’s point of view. The supermoon appears only very slightly larger than most other full moons, although it can seem bigger than when low in the sky. Still, it’s a reason to get out and appreciate this ethereal beauty that joins us each evening.

The moon has long been central to the way we understand time. Because the moon’s orbit around the earth lasts just a bit over 27 days, it led to the concept of months (née “moonths”). The moon helped humans to conceive of time in the same way it exists in the observable, natural world – as circular.

Later, as humans became more and more divorced from nature, a more abstract concept of time arose. This is the way we usually perceive of time today, as progressive and linear. But this is not what we see in the world around us, in the stars or the moon. The linear view of time, always moving forward, never to be recovered, is a human invention.

Watercolor drawings of phases of the moon, Galileo, 1609

Given my ever-present anxieties around time (“How much do I have? How should I use it? Is there enough of it?”), and their deleterious effects on both my pschye and my creativity, I thought it might be worth experimenting with a more natural conept of time, one that is cyclical and repeating, not a straight arrow into the future, and not a “resource” that I must “use.”

As David Abrams wrote in The Spell of the Sensuous, "As long as we structure our lives according to assumed parameters of a static space and a rectilinear time, we will be able to ignore, or overlook, our thorough dependence upon the earth around us."

Not only the earth around us, but our bodies too, which are of course a part of nature. Our bodies depend on cycles: cycles of blood pumping, cycles of breath, cycles of sleep and wakefulness.

There are small cycles, medium cycles, and short cycles. When you’re trying to work with the body rather than against it, you pay attention to them. In strength sports training, for example, these are referred to as micro-cycles, meso-cycles, and macro-cycles and they’re used mainly for fatigue management. It’s common wisdom that the periods of rest are when the muscle rebuilds and grows, not during the work.

So how might I live more in line with the nature of things? Here are some ideas I’m hoping to try this year:

Micro:

• Daily rituals, especially ones that feel grounding.

• Planned breaks throughout the day, to replenish my body.

Meso:

• Weekly reflections on what I’m creating (right here in this newsletter).

• Monthly adventures, to feed myself new ideas.

Macro:

• A longer sabbatical sometime this year, to fully recharge.

It’s like a training program for my creativity, where the rest is as important as the work.

I Made This

I haven’t really gotten in to quilting yet, though I’ve made a couple baby quilts, and I do love to look at them and think about making more. But in the last few weeks at work, we started a wonky log cabin quilt with scraps to donate to Project Linus, and I found the more scrappy, improvisational, imperfect style of quilting to be deeply soothing. And fun!

I also like the wonky nature of it. Perfect is overrated. I plan to start saving more small scraps from here on out, just to play with like this.

And look… coincidentally, there are some little moons hidden in there.

Head, Heart, Hands

Things to make us think, feel, and do.

• The attention in these delicate textile sculptures by Lauren Pruen (image above) is remarkable.

• The idea of “machines that make you feel more human” is intriguing, as I feel like I’m swimming upstream sometimes in an attempt to be less machine-like myself. Some that came to mind for me: the sewing machine, the camera, the coffee maker (kidding not kidding).

• I just bought myself this big wall calendar. I guess it looks rather linear, but you could also see it as a series of cycles going both across and down the page. I’m also thinking about getting a moon phase calendar like this one by Alec Thibodeau or this witchy one that reminds me of concert posters from the 60s, but not sure if I have a place to hang one.

• Why do we pray? Because the bell rings.

• It’s funny what we label as “distractions” and what we label as our true work. Sometimes the distractions are what count.

• “The aesthetic impulse to share is at least as strong as the impulse to imitate. Beauty welcomes both.” This piece makes the case for the importance of beauty in our lives, something that I think is often either trivialized or exploited.

• I can’t stop thinking about this lecture from Ian McGilchrist, discovered via

  Austin Kleon
  . I’ve just finished reading The Master and His Emissary and it is the best book I read this year, by a mile. I’m sure I’ll be talking about it incessantly for a while.

• Another book I really learned from this year was The Molecule of More. I read it right before I went to my first silent meditation retreat, and those two experiences paired rather well.

Question of the week

What are your intentions for the new year? I’d love to hear them.

PS: As I mentioned last week, I’m going to slightly adjust the format next week in an attempt to create a newsletter that is more attuned to the seasons and also more of a weekly creative journal. More beauty, more creating, more community in 2023.

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