On the Solstice, Emergence, and When Change Is Hard & Cold

And why you might (just might) wanna keep going, even when it feels pointless and shit

I write from Aotearoa/New Zealand on the morning of the winter solstice -  a time to marvel as the earth reaches the end of one cycle and begins another. Longer, brighter days lie ahead. More sunshine… right?

But hang on - it’s still bloody freezing here and we have two more months of bitter winter left to go.

The delay between longer days and warmer temperatures happens because the Earth and its atmosphere take time to release the heat stored from previous months. Ok. Of course.

It got me thinking about this lag, or this delay, in other areas, such as those people I work with and amongst who are beavering away hard to create changes but aren’t ‘feeling the warmth’ of them yet.

Is this you? Perhaps you are looking for change in your inner world like more calm and patience, less anxiety and panic, less debilitating perfectionism, or any number of things.

Or perhaps you are out there in the 'outer' world, tinkering away in our communities, around our bioregions and perhaps within our complex structures of power and governance.

(Or perhaps none of the above and you barely have the energy to let your eyes skim this piece on your screen, never mind....doing stuff. Yup. I know that feeling for sure)

Part of the work I do is ...er...agitating... for systems change in the realms of mental health and environmental justice (because they are indubitably entangled with one another, along with absolutely bloody everything else... our profound and intimate interconnectedness is a fact we dismiss at literally murderous cost) and that's been incredibly difficult with the new right-wing government in my country of residence, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The better moments in this part of my work have been merely frustrating, with most times being soul-crushingly agonising as my heart breaks, piece by excruciating piece, into tiny shards.
Er...fun.

um, is this going to get more cheerful or what?

The other part of my work is helping people along paths to less anxiety, overwhelm, stress and panic and the lesson of the Winter solstice today reminds me there's far more at play that what we (you) can see.  There are forces and metabolisms and currents invisible to us all when it comes to change and I wanted to pop in and gently persuade you to keep going even if the days still feel cold (metaphorically speaking).

Everything around us is constantly shifting, although it's often invisible to our human eyes and our human notion of linear time.

This is happening in collective, out-there-in-the-world ways, like in hidden networks of collaboration, activism, and disruption. Changes in values and shared beliefs are drip-drip-dripping their way to significant societal transformations. Innovations often burst from the convergence of various fields, revealing how breakthroughs arise from seemingly unrelated efforts coming together. Technological synergies and social movements show how unexpected combinations and collective actions shape new norms and solutions

..and it's ok that we think it's not happening fast enough, and there's too much being lost in the meantime, and that it might be too late....we can hold that, too. Or, try.

And this change, this constant shifting, is happening in our inner worlds, too.

Small shifts in awareness or understanding can cascade into profound inner transformations. A tiny shift in how you perceive a situation—maybe a baby insight or a really teeny change in attitude—can let just a bead of light get in, that grows over time, and can grow into a major shift in your overall sense of self and the way you move through the world and how you treat others, yourself, and the planet.

Like a single drop of water eventually creating a ripple across a pond.

Or like saying "hello" to someone in your street and they say hello back, and then you start chatting and, before you know it you're meeting all the neighbours and joining their committee, soon you're head of the tree-planting initiative and when you go and pick out some oak saplings you happen to meet the love of your life...but you are already married, so there's that...is this turning into an Alanis Morissette song...

This is emergence.

hey, emergence

Emergence is a concept that's' fascinating me at the moment, and is extraordinarily helpful in all realms of my work, with others, and in life.

Emergence, simply, is when something new arises from the interaction of single parts, but the new thing can't be fully explained just by looking at the parts themselves. It’s like how tiny ants can build complex colonies with intricate tunnels. Or how millions of individual pixels on a screen come together to form a breathtaking image.

Or how a group of people with their own thoughts and experiences can unite to create a powerful social movement

Or how a person who struggles with anxiety attacks notices how their mind settles on its own, every time, and how this little noticing grows into a trustworthy understanding about being human during challenges.

Emergence describes tiny, invisible things becoming big, transformative things that change...loads of other things, like lives and planets.

In the context of our inner world, a small insight—like a subtle shift in understanding—can interact with our existing thoughts, beliefs, and experiences to spark profound changes. Over time (which can be quite a short amount of time, or longer, please be patient) this can lead to completely new way of seeing or being, one that couldn’t be predicted just from that initial moment of clarity.

This happened for me a few years ago after taking some courses in climate change, social justice and systems thinking (you know, for fun).
What I learned mingled and merged and mixed with my experiences as a mental health practitioner and coach who helps people with anxiety, overwhelm, stress, panic and so on. There was an emergence.
How I see mental wellbeing was fundamentally shifted —it was no longer just as an individual experience shaped by thought (as I’d long understood through my coaching training and spiritual practice) but as something deeply influenced by the systems we live within, the collective experiences we share, and the health of the planet itself. While understanding the role of thought in shaping our reality remains tremendously valuable, I’ve come to see the need to place our thinking within the wider ecological and societal forces that shape our lives. All these lenses—personal and collective, inner and outer—are essential now.

ok, let's connect all this so you can get on with your day

Back to what I’m sharing with you...something to do with the solstice and something to do with emergence, and how both may help if you’re seeking inner and/or outer change.

Right? I think it was that. Sometimes I start writing and then I see a bird outside (1) and then I'm looking up "finch behaviour at solstice nz" and "do finches eat sunflower seeds" and "how to tell a finch from a sparrow" and "if you don't know the difference between a finch and a sparrow by late thirties are you a really bad human" (2)

The solstice is a perfect reminder that change doesn’t happen all at once. The earth has already tilted. The days are already lengthening. Yet we don’t feel the warmth of that change immediately. The transformation is underway, but results take time to become visible. This delay mirrors how change unfolds in our inner and outer worlds.

Emergence (3) teaches us that even small shifts—whether in our thinking, actions, or relationships—can interact and grow into something far, far greater than the sum of their little,teeny-weeny, inconsequential-seeming parts. The first subtle stirrings of insight or action may seem insignificant, but over time, they compound and ripple into something transformative and enormous.

Just as the Winter Solstice promises brighter days ahead, emergence reminds us that unseen forces are always at work, swirling and gathering toward something new.

So, even when (er...especially when) progress feels slow or invisible, changes are unfurling in places you can’t see.
The lag we feel—the gap between effort and result, in personal or collective change—shows how the slow build of unseen work eventually leads to something powerful and real.

Keep going, friend, in your own sweet time.

notes & things:

1. The Merlin app is amazing for birds and is my favourite way to not do my work. Even though I love my work. But also: birds.
   
2. Speaking of birds (which we are, aren't we? Aren't we?!), a book I love is The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World by Matt Kracht

The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World — Matt Kracht Author

Matt Kracht Author0

I read this book after going into a completely-healthy-but-still-unpleasant Black Hole of Gathering Awfulness when I was claimed by the trifecta of the collapsing AMOC, the worsening conflict in the Middle East, and getting tumeric all over my friends coat. Somehow this book burrowed through all that and I laughed like hell.

3. For more on emergence, please check out this beautiful book by adrienne maree brown or this paper by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze