For the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others.
Copernicus Nicolaus
Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.
Vesta M. Kelly
When you play, life becomes like clay.
Unknown
In our last post of this winter stretch, I’d like to share some musings and contemplations that have enchanted me for the last few months. They’re not necessarily connected, but maybe you can find a thread in or through them or some general usefulness.
I’ve said plenty, so let’s get right to it.
Winterfell
This winter activated me like a sleeper agent, didn’t it?? 🤯
I promise I didn’t plan all of this! It just started happening and happening and I went with it. Truthfully, the idea to adopt the name Winter came to me last summer on one of my legendary walks.
I think as the Journey Home began coming to a close, I started to feel like my work with the name Rustin was also coming to an end.
I was out in the open, I was using my voice, so I no longer needed the crutch, the permission, the luminary. It was time to find my own light. Then Winter kinda just dropped down while I was high-stepping through the neighborhood.
At first, I was like, nah nah that’s too on the nose. Cute, but no… Then I started to live with it a lil bit, started to see all the symbolism and what it could mean for a lifetime of contribution and WROTE. IT. DOWN. (As if I would have forgotten it…)
The point I’d like you to take from this is, again not that you should change your name, I have professional as well as unstated, but surmisable, personal reasons for the change, but that all that you want to become and offer exists in some form already within you.
It’s literally like mining gold.
As you do the work on yourself, digging through years and decades of stuff (lows and highs), you hit something. You keep digging and realize there are ores and ores of gold or, referencing wells and vessels, vast reserves of untapped groundwater you can draw from.
Then what was once only the name of a season becomes deeply personal and useful.
But make no mistake, it does often feel like excavation. And I have used so many tools to uncover me. Therapy, meditation, breathwork, creative play, crying, COMING OUT, journaling, heart coherence, and everything else I have mentioned up to this point.
I don’t mean to suggest that you will also need to use the same spread and collection of tools, you might deeply resonate with a couple that you really master, but I mean to say that it does take work and intention and that it is worth it.
Like I said in MELVYN WINTER, I feel like I’ve found my open road.
So DIG. EXCAVATE. EXPLORE.
You’re a whole world waiting to be discovered.
Winter and the Foundations of Creation
Since I go on so many walks (in a day, every day, in the same place) I see how my natural environment changes across the seasons up close. So I see, like now, when the buds begin filling in preparing for showtime as well as when everything has “died off.”
One of the things I noticed one day was how, despite everything looking bare, lifeless, and empty during the winter, the trees and some of the other plants look like axons and, more specifically, dendrites; key components of neurons, the building blocks of the nervous system.
Axons and dendrites are essential components of the neuronal structure facilitating communication to and from the cell body and nucleus of the neuron.
Axons are long, narrow extensions from the body of the neuron that transmit electrical impulses (and/or neurotransmitters) containing information to other neurons, glands, or muscles.
Dendrites are shorter, branching (or spiking) extensions that receive electrical signals from other neurons carrying these signals back to the body of the neuron to be integrated and processed to influence action.
This foundational mechanism, neuron action, is responsible for the body’s entire function from fleeting feelings to complex cognitive processes.
So on my walk, I noticed how tree branches look like dendrites and how winter lays bare the foundational structure of nature.
It occurred to me, with nature’s receiving structures exposed, that the season is all about receiving information and impulses and integrating and processing them in our bodies.
The pervasive, unignorable death of winter shows what’s actually necessary for creation and regeneration. While the branches seem empty, I imagine they are receiving electrical impulses and energy from the sun, the wind, the birds, the rain and snow, everything—and delivering insights back to their bodies and surrounding environments.
Nature’s cognition.
Likewise, as we enter this ostensibly dark time in our shared history, things may be rolled back and taken away and we may be forced to see our natures, society, and ourselves similarly laid bare.
As a result, we will see what’s truly necessary to rebuild and reconstruct; that is our relationships, our communities, our (aligned) work, and our joie de vivre.
Without fail, most things die in the winter and yet spring is always as vibrant as ever.
Learning from nature, whatever it seems like we lose now, will have no bearing on the regeneration our cells and souls know is not only possible but inevitable for us.
Like winter, though, during these times we should focus primarily internally on processing and integrating all the impulses and insights we are being delivered and connecting to in preparation for a new cycle of life and a new era of humanity.
There is no going back from all we’ve seen.
Thus, when you see all the death and decay and corruption, be reminded that it’s simply winter doing its work while we do ours: connecting, introspecting, and preparing for boundless creation.
If this message feels too late given we have two-ish weeks left of winter, take this as an invitation to move your body gently, take some warm baths, or a nap to integrate the messages you’ve surely received since December.
There’s a lot ahead of us.
Creators Galore and Makers Aplenty
Given all this [*gestures wildly at everything*], I believe this is why we’re seeing so many creators and small businesses popping up.
I think of the Capricornian age we’re leaving as one of big business and skyscrapers. It’s the singular individual, or small group, deciding entertainment programming and product launches for hundreds of millions of people.
We’re leaving that age for the Aquarian one of the artisan, the small business owner, and the service provider, but not without fallout and corporate resistance.
It seems we’re now, the masses, taking our work and our contributions and offering them to The People through our social media platforms and networks instead of pitch meetings with out-of-touch old men with pockets to line and shareholders to please.
It makes sense, too! At this stage, it seems that giving our ideas, attention, and monthly subscriptions to the billionaires and shareholders too often results in our favorite shows getting canceled. Yet somehow that’s considered conservatism and not ineptitude. But I divest!
To my extreme satisfaction, it seems many are now responding to a subtle call to work that is more in line with who they are and hope to be. Or at the very least pulling their energy back from these exploitative, parasitic systems.
I think so many of us have realized that there are the capitalists and then there is us. And we are NOT the same. Droves of people have decided to no longer feed the false system of capital that charges us and poisons us with stuff it didn’t create.
For example, did you know that Nestlé gets its water from federally owned springs, wells, and municipal (city or town) water supplies and makes ~$4.5B selling it BACK to us each year? A huge amount for cheap plastic and water seized through corporate lobbying and super PACs.
Additionally, various environmentalist groups have condemned their water collection efforts for their destructive impact on natural water supplies. Anyway, I divest!
In a system like this, if it’s not generative, it’s exploitative and most likely robbery.
What’s happening now, though, is (some) people are slowly, but surely waking up to how they’ve been robbed and have taken actions to reclaim some of their power.
My only concern in this hyper-inflating creator economy is the large number of people seizing this moment and opportunity by selling or offering templates or unoriginal stuff.
No judgment, but we need actual creators. People who are drawing from their own deep wells and sharing things we don’t know we need, but have been struggling to live without. Hence the importance of connecting to our essences, our souls.
When you follow and fan the flames of what you truly enjoy, even when it doesn’t make sense, you offer what the wisest part of you knew we would need.
When you are in your realm of genius, you actually employ gifts and competencies you’ve developed over the looong history of your soul, so you can make ground and progress quickly. You’re a “natural.”
You move into the intersection of what we need and you most come alive doing; at a time when it is so desperately needed. So yes, create. But be honest about what’s yours to offer. There is gold in you. Mine it.
Become your wildest dreams.
As Shakespeare wrote, “To thine own self be true.”
Be the unique, singular individual you were designed, and tested, to be.
Be a snowflake.
Snowflakin’
A snowflake is a thing of beauty, especially seen up close.
Let me remind you, though, how they’re formed and how they relate to us.
A snowflake begins as a particle of dust, dirt, or pollen floating way up in the atmosphere.
In wet weather conditions, water vapor sticks to, or coalesces around that particle of dust and freezes. Due to the molecular structure of water, the water freezes around the dust particle in a six-sided prism that becomes the base of the spiked design we’re familiar with.
Then, as this dust-particle prism moves up in elevation into cooler air, branches form on the six sides of the structure.
As the soon-to-be snowflake descends into warmer air and back up into cooler air, collecting more water droplets, more and more branches form on the “spikes” of the crystal formation.
Once heavy enough, the now nearly-formed snowflake begins to fall. As this flake drops into warmer air, long narrow tips, the spikes, form, giving it its distinctive, singular shape.
Upon joining the countless other snowflakes and dust particles that have made their way to Earth, a beautiful (or inconvenient) snowfall results.
Dope right?
What I find fascinating about the development of the snowflake is that it is its individual journey through various temperatures and elevations that cause its intricate design.
Additionally, despite how beautiful they are, snowflakes at their centers are forgettable specks of dust or dirt. And finally, no single snowflake takes responsibility for closing schools or becoming an avalanche. Those are joint efforts.
Now, back to us.
Have you also not weathered various climates, terrains, and altitudes? Have you not risen and fallen? Have you not been way up then found yourself falling down?
That’s just the nature of the snowflake. The nature of being beautiful, of being you.
Out of all the specks of dust or pollen in the atmosphere, out of all the people who exist, none will take the same path, so none will come out the same, or have the same construction. Yet all of them, snowflakes and people, have their place in the resulting snowfall; and in spring their contribution to the groundwater from which our wells draw.
Practically, this means you needn’t be responsible for or worry about more than what’s yours to focus on. You can be one snowflake among a billion and trust that you will have your necessary and sufficient impact among the collective.
Likewise, just as snowflakes, as a result of going through your own highs and lows, you need to crystallize and become your distinct self. You can’t avoid the highs that form your branches (or dendrites), or the lows that lengthen your spikes (or extend your reach and relatability). All of these experiences, over a lifetime, or the life that you’ve lived thus far, construct your unique contribution.
Subsequently, as things heat up out in the world, we melt (or become activated) and replenish the water supply that is our shared supply of life. That is, we nourish our peers, communities, and a sweltering Earth.
So when you think about, reflect on, or navigate your highs and lows consider that you are simply coalescing; collecting experiences, heating up, cooling down, and becoming you.
A thing of beauty. A snowflake.
Reorganization and Answered Prayers
My God, it’s so loud.
I get why and it’s not unjustifiable, but goodness.
We, the MASSES, keep preparing for disaster and attending to its creation with our attention energy.
Another way I have begun looking at things is that there is simply a restructuring happening that we are assisting with. What we have known all our lives is being destroyed, but what “they” are hoping to create needs our participation. And the masses are not messing with this silliness.
In MELVYN WINTER, I said that the “new world” is already here, but reorganization and assembly are required.
What if we looked at this pending collapse and all this chaos as reorganization (albeit tumultuous)?
Between worlds, anything can be created and formed. Like greenware, or unfinished, unfired pottery, we can reshape and redirect our individual and cumulative energy to influence what comes out of the kiln.
Lest you think this is all imaginal or neat work, pottery gets messy. You’ve got to use your hands, begin again and again, and pay close attention to your work. You have to be present. And the best way for you to be present is to be your timeless design. You have to be the solution to the problems you are most moved by. The answer to someone’s prayer.
So I’m calling it.
We’re living through The Great Reorganization and the Era of the Answered Prayer.
Everything looks bad, but what if it looked like things were in flux? There seem to be a million and one problems, but what if you were only designed to focus on one?
What if you acted like you had the blank check to create that all the people who are destroying the planet operate with? What if you did all the good you wished to do with the same determination and abandon as those who seek to roll us back?
What if you lived like your prayers were already answered? How would you live if you bore in mind that you are an answered prayer? That you are a solution parading as a person?
Decide who you want to be (read: are) and get to sharing that with us.
When I was reading about Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and their Civil Rights work, I saw that A. Philip Randolph said:
Behaving in this way requires the innocence of a dove and the shrewdness of a serpent. The ultimate irony is that in any struggle we could not be virtuous if we were really as innocent as we pretended to be.
Said another way: for the work that truly matters, that truly makes change, you should be and appear blameless and harmless, but also simultaneously sharp and clever. It serves no one for you to act unaware and overly humble of the impact your life and gifts can have.
You don’t have to be carried away but you can’t be coy. You must be aware of the impact your existence can make.
You need to decide the star, the sun, the light around which your life revolves, and then REFUSE to be pulled out of your orbit by bullshit.
There are no saviors here. That work was outsourced to all of us.
That’s all.
The Cloak of Visibility
Lastly, and I’m just gonna say this real quick:
I have and have seen other people struggle with creating, stepping out into the light, etc. due to a fear of visibility, shame, and other connected fears.
However…
I wonder if your fear of visibility is less about you being seen (a cover, a cloak) and more about how you know people will have to respond to you in your power?
Maybe it’s actually less about how you’ll potentially be seen and more about how you know you’ll be felt. Hmm?
That and them are not your business. All that’s gotta move around.
Show up.
In Closing.
Apparently the “Winter Story” has been one of unbecoming, reinventing, becoming, and re-establishing myself. One of preparing and committing myself to service and planting my flag in the sand. Of naming my place in the world (and calendar year).
Well, I’m here now. And I plan to stay for a good looong while.
Join me?
I’ll talk to y’all in the spring.
Winter 🏔️
P.S. My website has been updated, so you can find all the posts, quotes, my vision, about, ethos, reading list, etc. at Melvynwinter.com
