Last week, we listened to the soil. We noticed what was compacted, depleted, haunted, fertile. We stayed with the field as it is and not as we hoped it might be.
This week, if something wants to move…just one thing…we let it.
This is the first step of changing how we behave in this moment. Once we have worked out how we stand (listened to the soil) we want to rehearse how we might step into what is emerging. This is an opportunity to let go of the ways we ‘know’ and start to create ways we can feel and be.
We are looking for rhythmic participation through micro-moments of attuned action. Staying present and aligned whilst acting, practicing all the futures that we want to bring into being. We personify the change we want to see in the world, and act out that place not ego or trauma or desire.
This is easy work to describe and very difficult work to do. So we do it gently, with compassion for ourselves and others, in communion with all human and non-human kin. In the doing, the being emerges.
“Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.”
David Whyte
Not because we are ready, not because we have it figured out, but because a seed is not a blueprint, it is a commitment to begin.
The One Thing practice
The practice is simple:
Choose one thing this week that feels alive and do it gently.
Just one thing, small enough not to demand approval and grounded enough to resist abstraction plus alive enough to matter.
It might be:
Making a phone call you’ve been avoiding
Sending a poem instead of a proposal
Mending something: a shirt, a fence, a relationship
Cooking from scratch with intention
Cleaning a neglected corner, inside or out
Planting a literal seed
It doesn’t have to be strategic…it doesn’t have to scale…it just has to be true.
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A note on scale
We’ve inherited a culture that values the visible, the scalable, the efficient but the Season of Seeding reminds us that beginnings are often small and secret. What if this week is not about “impact,” but about rhythmic participation? What if the point is not to fix the world, but to stay in it: awake, engaged, imperfect?
Atomic Habits by James Clear reminds us that tiny habits compound, not just into results, but into identity.
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
These micro-acts, especially when repeated, form the pattern of a life. They anchor us back into agency, into presence, into becoming. Not by force or performance but by showing up again and again. Even one small act, if aligned and tended, can begin to rewire the root system.
A quiet question
What is one small act that restores relationship with yourself, someone else, the land, the future? Do that, let it count and let it be enough.
Small things, done gently over time, is how the seed becomes a garden.
The Art of Unravelling is offered as a gift, sustained by those who feel called to support the weaving. If you’d like to help tend the fabric of this work, you can contribute via the link below.