Did you notice anything change for you as the solstice passed into equinox? I want to be purposeful with this question. I’m not marking a specific seasonal change, like a switch was flicked. I’m asking you to bring your attention to the past season. I’m asking you to sit a moment longer with where you’re at and what brought you here over the last few months. And while I’m not attaching equinox to a specific season (depending on the hemisphere), I do want to attach it to a vernal sentiment, a sense of being refreshed and new beginnings. Hope. And encouragement.
What have you learned this past season? And more specifically, what is holding for you in this moment? Please pause, or take as much time as you need to sit with these questions. I would even encourage you to open a new spread in your journal to write down all of these questions. However, please give yourself time to let the answers come. Or, simply don’t write anything else.
Just sit.
As I write this, unfiltered, stream-of-thought reflection, I am reminded that I am actually writing this letter to myself. It might sound like a silly device, but when I generally write, I selfishly write for myself. Nevertheless, you are reading this, too, and I’m therefore warmed by the idea that you will also be sitting with these questions, blank journal open, pondering, waiting, meditating, and waiting some more. Like me.
Together, we wait.
When I first set out to write this letter, I had several ideas and angles ranging from what agentic learning is to its inexorable political nature. Yet, something kept each lofty draft from reaching its end. It was as if time was saying, “Not yet.” There is irony in that if I’m allowed to privately laugh at my own accidental joke. Still, “not yet” aligns so much with how we learn, how we refine, how we eventually nod to one another in silent consensus, “OK, it’s ready.”
Another version of my letter wanted to express my gratitude and appreciation for the “sovereign generation,” a wonderful, impactful, driven, and ever hopeful cross-section of human beings who refuse to perpetuate, much less abide by the broader learning approaches none of us chose for ourselves. If you’re reading this letter, you are most likely one of them. And so I am ever grateful for what you do because it helps me to do what I do. Only together are we all able to step outside preset boundaries, ask unwelcome questions, sit with uncomfortable space, and create unimagined ways of learning.
Together, we expand horizons.
Minds Studio just held space for their members to collectively sit and reflect on the past season. Our humble gathering is also a way to remind ourselves of how to “be” as our lives are continually pulled forward moment by moment. Each of us, within Minds Studio or not, is navigating so many unspoken things, many of which we are barely able to review in those moments. And then we collectively pause. We share our vulnerability.
Together, we struggle.
As one person shared with me over the summer, “This space is precious.” For me, that really begins to touch something sacred. Through this gathering, as well as our other daily practices inside Minds Studio, we experience the collective “not yet,” patiently working through ideas which themselves beg purposeful consideration until we reach that collective nod, “OK, it’s ready.”
Together, we welcome the new day.
As I start this equinox with a refreshed perspective and a private, internal practice that can start my morning, I sincerely wish the same for you. We can only be to each other what each of us deserves if we each have and maintain our own sacred space starting our day. All learning innovation and designs aside, I am convinced the better we are at that, the better everything will be this equinox.
Thank you for following and reading our letters.
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