On seasonal resets

a meditation on rhythm, rest and resisting the urge to reinvent

Something about the Autumn/Winter seasonal shift sparks a desire in all of us to resist our current habits. Feeds are flooded with “Great Lock-Ins,” “Winter Arcs,” and the one I love to hate: “working on my summer body.”

This season, by its very nature, invites us to slow down. The days shorten, the light softens, the air cools - and everything in us wants to retreat a little. To hibernate, even. Yet somehow, instead of leaning into that natural rhythm, we seem to be turning it into another productivity sprint. Another reason to optimise.

We used to live seasonally in a much more literal way. Our diets were tethered to the land - root vegetables and preserved goods in winter, greens and berries in spring, harvests in autumn. The light dictated our waking hours; work started and ended with the sun. We gathered firewood, mended clothes, repaired tools - not as hobbies, but as rituals of maintenance. Festivals marked planting and harvest times, not product launches or algorithm cycles. The…