The Rhythm We Forgot
Listening to what the land and our bodies already know
Publishing Date: December 7, 2025
The First Draft explores systems, institutions, technology, and the human realities of living inside them. Essays, field notes, and practical frameworks from the intersection of work, identity, and change.
New here? Start with the Pathways archive.
This essay belongs to the 5 - Returning to land and rhythm pathways.
I was asked to do a land acknowledgement recently, and instead of speaking about place, I found myself thinking about time.
Last year, I read that the way we fill our calendars in fall and winter, the busiest seasons in the global north, goes against the teachings of many Indigenous peoples. Traditionally, these months were for rest, reflection, food, and community. The darker days were meant for warmth and connection, not productivity.
November and March are my busiest months. They are when everything we have planned finally unfolds: programs to run, students to teach, goals to meet. There is a kind of quiet joy in the doing, but also a cost.
The seasons give us a rhythm to live by, and yet we have built our lives to work against them. We are meant to be in the sun, working through spring and summer, and resting when the world turns inward. Instead, we push hardest when the light is scarce.
I have been sitting with this, wondering what it would mean to honour these rhythms more gently. To treat rest as part of the work, not a reward for it. To listen more deeply to what the land tells us, and what our bodies already know.
Next Step: A Way to Practice This in Your Life
A gentle, non-prescriptive exercise that may help you reconnect your schedule with seasonal cues.
Rhythm Audit (7 Days)
Notice your energy levels at three points each day: morning, mid-afternoon, evening.
Note one moment your body asked for rest or slowness.
Note one moment you overrode that message.
Identify one point in the day where you felt most aligned with the current season.
End each day with one sentence: What rhythm did I follow today: the land’s, the calendar’s, or someone else’s?
At the end of the week, reflect:
• What patterns repeated
• Where their systems resisted
• Where small adjustments might bring more ease
• One gentle shift for the week ahead
PS: If you want to support this work: restack it, share it, or drop a quick comment. It helps more than you’d think, and it keeps me writing and helping other changemakers. (This one’s public—feel free to send it on.)
Further Reading and Context
I share books and sources here because I think the legacies people work from matter, and because good writing deserves a longer conversation than one essay can hold. Some of these informed this piece directly. Others are invitations to go deeper into the territory it opens. You can browse my full reading list, organized by theme to see the broader intellectual foundation this newsletter draws from.
Some links below are Amazon.ca affiliate links. I also include Chapters Indigo, Kobo, and WorldCat so you can support a Canadian bookseller or find it at your library instead. I earn a small commission if you buy through affiliate links at no extra cost to you.
Gines, Kathryn T., Comparative and Decolonial Philosophy (2018). Gines offers a reminder that integrating Indigenous frameworks requires care, attribution, and attention to positionality. A helpful grounding for settlers engaging these ideas.
Haraway, Donna, Staying with the Trouble (2016). Haraway argues for embracing ecological embeddedness rather than resisting it. A contemporary lens on honouring rhythms larger than our calendars.
Little Bear, Leroy, Jagged Worldviews Colliding (2000). Little Bear describes how Indigenous worldviews integrate cycles, reciprocity, and natural rhythms. The idea that human activity should mirror environmental cycles is part of a larger relational framework.
Palmer, Parker J., A Hidden Wholeness (2004). Palmer speaks to the need for “wintering” as part of the human lifecycle. Dormancy is not inactivity but preparation. A counterpoint to productivity culture.
Wall Kimmerer, Robin, Braiding Sweetgrass (2013). Kimmerer writes about seasonal knowledge as a guide for ethical living. Her work complicates the idea of “efficiency” by situating it within natural cycles of energy, recovery, and renewal.