The Fallow Season

The rhythm of our lives is no steady beat.

At times life is filled with energy, change, people, hope.

At other times, we appear like a water beetle stuck in a puddle: thrashing in circles, unable to get anywhere, lacking the strength to make a decisive move, faintly ridiculous, more vulnerable than we'd like anyone to know.

I am in such a stage right now.

To be honest with you all (and this is not the focus of this post, we will move beyond this) I am feeling that life is not working for me well at the moment, with the overall impact being a great deal of work, an extremely limited income, new family caring responsibilities and related relationships around that, and not enough joy.

But now is not the time for bold actions. There have been already many of those.

I know also there are members who despair on ever moving beyond their recognition that "there is more in me this". We call them (kindly, and in the knowledge we will all be in this place at times): the lost and stuck.

So I wanted to talk about how we can cultivate a fallow season, and how endure it in a world obsessed with progress, and in the context of our own impatience.

A reminder that we covered some similar themes in our Wintering collection of articles, which you can find in that section of our website. This collection of articles focuses on rest, reflection and recuperation as part of our journey.

Today's piece though looks more at the art of inaction.

Name the season

My well-meaning friends are keen for me to make decisions promptly and enact them swiftly. "Why don't you go on the list for a council house?" "Why don't you get a business loan to fund your jewellery collection?"

I have found if rather helpful to tell them: I am in my fallow season.

What I mean is: this soil of my mind is not now fit for planting anything that will flourish, this climate around me is not propitious.

Whisper it in the corridors of the C-suite: but sometimes it really is best to do nothing.