Endings and Beginnings
Threads in the weave of 2025
I can see numerous places in the wheel of the year that could be called a new beginning. The ancient Celts considered Samhain to be the start of the year. Spring time certainly feels full of new life where I live. Of course Winter festival is officially the start of the New Year in our culture. While Winter Solstice makes sense as a “new year” with the the return of the Sun, I also have my birthday in early January, so there is a solar return coming for me personally as well. All this brings a chance to reflect, and the lull of late December gives me some time for that. Throughout this written reflection process, I have paused to write Haiku, which you will find below. They are pulled out as quotes, so if you are just here for Haiku you can scroll and find them. Otherwise you’ll find What I’ve been writing, reading, listening to, and doing, however, if you are reading this in email, you may need to click through to view the whole thing.
What I’ve been writing:
Screaming in hushed tones
Poetry into the void
Voice echoing back
I almost never review my stats on Substack. I just don’t. Because it doesn’t feel good, because I write for other reasons, and because I don’t find meaning in those numbers. But I did peek today. It seems that I steadily hang out with just under 300 subscribers and just under 700 followers. I have written less short essays than I have brewed in my heart and mind. Perhaps some of those topics will emerge in my writing next year. As I reflect I am gathering threads of topics that are hiding in the shadows.
I have been mostly writing poetry this year, and I am still loving Haiku. Perhaps I will collate my favourite Haiku as a post…..and I’ll just keep writing new ones.
My most appreciated poetry and essays of the year:
What I’ve been reading:
I have a somewhat overwhelmingly long list of saved articles on Substack. There is so much shared that I find interesting and inspiring, but I can’t keep up. That’s partly because of parenting, and partly because I reserve night time reading for printed books.
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass
I read this very slowly over the course of a couple years with a large pause in the middle. When I picked it up again, I devoured the remaining parts. For those of you who have read this, you know that although most of the sections could stand alone as essays, the real beauty emerges in its entirety. I have so much to say about this, but rather than writing it all here I will consider revisiting it in writing later while I attempt to enact the lessons in my life. For those of you who haven’t read it, it is the the Silent Spring of our time and describes a reconfiguration of perspective very much needed in this world. I have been thinking about narratives related to our relationship with the rest of nature, extractionism, what sustainable really means, and how the framework of reciprocity helps us see our roles in both giving and receiving within our web of life.
Reciprocity
What does it mean to us now?
Seeing our true place
Robin Wall-Kimmerer’s Serviceberry
This is brief yet meaningful. It got me thinking about neighbours and community. This is another topic I may revisit in the coming months. I have been reflecting on how we need to make community wherever we happen to be with whomever happens to be there. One day perhaps I’ll tell you about how all the old folks on our street call my husband when they need help.
Just across the road
Old lady who I don’t know
Now I catch her tears
Pema Chodron’s The Places that Scare You
I’ve been very slowly reading this for about a year and a half now. I stopped to practice the Maitri meditation and took many months to incorporate that into my daily practice. It is now deeply part of not only my meditation, but also my relationships in the world. I am more able to hold people in compassionate care and more able understand that their perspectives have emerged from their experiences, whether they are similar or different from mine. I have touched on the next section of the book, on Tonglen, but that practice is still an infant within me.
May all beings rest
As anger and fear subside
Hatred turns to love
Fiction
I read a lot of fiction too. I don’t get up after my 4 year old falls asleep and I don’t take my phone to bed, so it is all reading at night. I read a lot of fiction that is well researched to provide deep insight into the culture in which the story takes place and the history of that culture. Through literature I have learned about Iran, India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, and escape from colonial slavery in the US. This week I finished reading Elif Shafak’s 10 minutes and 38 seconds in This Strange World. Set in Istanbul, it is an account of 10 minutes and 38 seconds unfolding at someone’s time of death and the lifetime of memories that emerge in that time.
In the dark quiet
I travel so far and wide
Through doors on a page
What I’ve been listening to:
We are the Great Turning Podcast with Joanna Macy and Jess Serrante:
https://www.soundstrue.com/a/resources/we-are-the-great-turning-podcast/
I am so grateful that Jess and Joanna created this before Joanna passed on. It is beautiful to hear a conversation that encompasses awe for the world and also the depth of grief that can be felt. The gift of Buddhist teachings is beautifully applied to approach our collective environmental challenge with true presence, attuning at once to fear and sorrow and possibility and love. I have yet finished the series and if you choose to listen as well, please let me know your thoughts and feelings about it as you go.
Your words find my ears
A language that speaks to me
Returning presence
What I’ve been doing:
Well, this just feels like way too much to encompass here and is perhaps fodder for future writing. Here are a few things that come to mind from this past year.
Herbalism & Plant Medicines
As usual, I have been teaching herbal medicine classes and clinics. Along with plant ID sessions, I particularly loving the evening herb tastings in the virtual herbal energetics class I teach.
The Herbal Energetics class is 45 hours over 4 months, and is online. I love that students come from all over the country (and more broadly the world sometimes) and from the safety of their own homes they get to sink deep into herbal connections when we taste teas and tinctures. My intention with the course beyond learning systems and languages of energetics, is for students to get the chance to hone their skills of observation, to deeply feel the plants and learn how to interpret their inner intuitive language. We do that together, seeing, hearing and holding each other in a deep remembrance of our capacity to feel and capacity to connect with plants, whose ancestors knew our ancestors. If you are interested in deepening your observational skills, I have a recording to offer and some tasting examples to share.
Sink in to yourself
And attune to your senses
Meet me at your heart
Permaculture Program
This deserves a series of posts to fully express! This year I shared in teaching a Permaculture program. We have a farm-based classroom with a garden to practice, explore, and learn in. I have been teaching the herbal component of the program for numerous years and deepening my understand of permaculture along the way. This year I also co-facilitated a portion of the program’s gardening course with Grace and Delvin Solkinson. They are some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever worked with. Their enthusiasm, positivity, and perseverance is amazing! They enact permaculture principles in all they do, facing challenges while uplifting all around them. This year I was keen to learn more about the social applications of permaculture, and I got to engage with that while also designing and building a new herbal medicine wheel and growing food with a group of learners dedicated to 10 months of in-person learning.
Planting medicine
In the land and in our hearts
Seeds for the future
Parenting:
Raft your boat to mine
In rough waves I’ll steady you
Anchored deep in love
Despite all ramblings about plants, I actually spend a lot of time parenting. I spend a lot of time snuggling. I also spend some mornings each week playing at preschool with my daughter. It is a little overwhelming for me to be in the company of a dozen 4 year olds, but it is also heart expanding and yet another avenue for learning to care.
A year ago, in January, my son started school again after 3 years of homeschool. It was a big deal for me, a major internal reconfiguration. However, parenting him has been 10 years of major reconfiguration! As I help him find his place in the world, I have also opened my own voice in a new and powerful way. Learning how to advocate means learning how to be unmasked, how to communicate, how to love unconditionally, how to feel deeply, how to accept, and when not to accept. It is fantastically hard, and fantastic. Below is a note I wrote back in November. I don’t write a lot about Neurodivergent parenting, so the online ND community perhaps doesn’t know where I am. Thus with the algorithms as they are, this note, which brought me tears to write, reached exactly one person’s heart (thank you Dr. Dana Leigh Lyons, DTCM over there in Thailand for seeing me in this. You are a consistently kind presence here). For context, I used to have to be there with my son all the time. Now he has grown in his independence. One day, just as I walked in the door, he called distressed. I turned around to go find him. Upon arrival, I spotted him instantly. I know him. I have a lot of practice at being there for him. When I want to protect him from those who don’t understand him, the Maitri practice helps ground me. When it all feels like too much to hold, I ask to be held by the biggest love I know. When I am lost the Earth is there beneath my feet. To hold him, she holds me.
What I am planning on doing next year:
Time will tell, things will emerge that I have not yet seen. I do have a few key intentions, and now I have a list of writing intentions to work with!
I will keep up with poetry and add more short essays on the wheel of the year, nature connection, ecological narratives, permaculture, and herbalism. One of the projects dearest to my heart from 2024 was the Reconnection series I created. It was an in-person offering, but I have slowly shared pieces of it online, so I will leave you with this link to explore both writing and an audio recording. There are 3 parts to this, and perhaps I’ll post the remaining two meditations this year. There will definitely be more of this type of offering from me in the future as it is nearest to my heart.
If you’ve made it this far, please accept my heartfelt thanks and consider clicking the heart below before you drift on. May you be held and anchored, uplifted and inspired in the days that come.
~ Lindsay
PS: I’ll leave you with this as a compass to guide us into the next turning:
What a beautiful, nourishing glimpse at your 2025 tapestry, Lindsay. Your words and shares here - and your work in the world - are so full of heart‑sourced presence, wisdom, and care. I feel grateful for our connection ❤️