I'm 31 years old and I still haven't quite learned how to be at peace with the winter season in Scandinavia. So little, that I have had a solid pattern of moving my life as close as possible to the Southern hemisphere when the darkest months of the year arrived. The global pandemic and some different prioritizations in my life has asked me to try to come into these months with more ease, as I now have my feet solidly planted in the cold and muddy Nordic soil since almost 2 years. I've always loved the seasons change on a theoretical level, even enjoyed the first days of winter, but the excitement got pretty quickly swopped with a plane ticket heading south.

This transition is by no means full of grace, but I guess facing darkness was never really a time for being worried about grace. I do however know that I have found many pockets of joy while winter bathing, curling into several layers of wool blankets while reading the pile of books that I have stocked up during the year, knitting baby sweaters for my friends new borns, cooking loads of currys with the spices I used to fill my suitcases with and going for long walks in the raw forrests.

My neighbourhood in Copenhagen (Tingbjerg-Husum, Utterslev Mose)

My neighbourhood in Copenhagen (Tingbjerg-Husum, Utterslev Mose)

This time calls for deep rest, naps, slowing down, saying no to what (no longer) feels vital, going inwards, being silently together with loved ones, lit candles, working with our hands and not only our heads, warm baths and sensing into what we want for ourselves, our community and the world in the new year. And oh my god, how do we need this on top of 2021. There's a sense of overloaded nervous systems, overwhelm and various levels of trauma from an exhausting and very very uncertain year. For many of us individually and for sure collectively.

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During the past few months I realised that a lot of my exhaustion this year had not so much to do with being overworked, I actually think that I have never worked as little as I did in 2021. But I did not intentionally fill in time where I could create without other purpose than joy. In October I signed up for ceramics classes every Friday afternoon which gave me such a boost of energy and flow that circled way beyond those classes. I was working with my hands, got out my busy head and no one had expectations for my creations.

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I know one of my main enquiries for next year is how I can work more with both my head, hands and heart. 2021 has been a whole lot of head (and heart), but I want my hands to do some of the thinking and doing. I have today signed up for pottery AND bobbin lace classes as a commitment to my hands. I've always wanted to learn to use the wheel to make pottery, and I used to do bobbin lace with my grand mother when I was an early teenager. One of the only things we had in common and now I'm picking that up both to honour the power of my hands but also to honour a relationship that wasn't always so easy.

Nature is asking us to close the laptops and I do hope that we collectively can give each other a little of that well deserved and needed down time, knowing that it's a privilige that not all of us will have. While it seems like a massive contradiction I would like to send out a global invitation just before that down time begins with absolutely no expectation to take action just now. Just an invitation to sense into whether or not our dreaming of the nearer future will be aligned.

I've committed myself to a peer-to-peer led learning journey next year hosted by Civic Square and Enrol Yourself. We are diving deep into Doughnut Economics, which is an economic framework that allows humanity to flourish within planetary boundaries while covering social needs. It's a lovely lovely book written by Kate Raworth. We will be part of a larger movement where 12 learning groups of up to 12 people each will be exploring the theory while experimenting with how to implement this theory in our own local neighbourhoods. We are gathering in a very advanced book club (+++) where we together will get an embodied understanding of the model(s) over an 8 months period. We will work with our heads, hearts and hands. I'm hosting an international learning journey, meaning that you can join from your corner of the world as long as time zones align. We will be gathering online for the entire journey and each of us will contribute to the learning taking place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziw-wK03TSw

My vision for my neighbourhood in 2030