How to Slow Down
a new guide has arrived
How to Slow Down
I will always, in some way, be learning how to slow down.
I don’t have to tell you that we live in a world that’s rapidly speeding up.
Because if you own a smartphone or a computer or are on social media; if you live in a city, work a job driven by the late stages of capitalism, or are raising children or caretaking in any way without the support of a village—then you already know and are potentially suffering the effects, of out-of-control progress.
This guide is not against speeding up, progress, and better. For there is a time and place for everything—including going faster.
Rivers contain both rushing rapids and gentle swathes of pools. July gardens produce with such ferocity that even 24 hours away can mean missing something proudly appearing. Whereas a garden in December seems to slumber with such depth that it is nearing a comatose state. The calmest part of a chaotic storm is the center—the eye.
This guide is a love letter to rapid progress’s lost lover, whom the world unknowingly longs for. A lover with the power to bring even just a morsel of balance into our lives within and without.
This mysterious and ancient spirit bears heirloom fruits that we all used to feast on. And are perhaps the very nutrients that we’re all suffering deficiency from.
Slowing down –– and its forgotten bounty that cannot help but spill over, dropping peaches and pears, apples and plums, figs and pluots.
For if we don't take up the great work of courting this lover, we will quickly find ourselves immersed in a field of forgetfulness. Forgetfulness of who we are, what is important to us, and of Life's subtle whispers. We will find ourselves swept up by the winds of more, over there, and better –– missing the Life right before our eyes.
Let this guide be an ally in remembering.
For you cannot miss another second of your one wild and precious life.