The first weekend of February 2025 aligned with Midwinter for Haudenosaunee nations and Imbolc for Celtic and Pagan communities. Other nations, cultures, communities, and individuals in the northern hemisphere also mark this midway point between winter and spring (hello Groundhog Day!), given that it often feels like a natural waking up from the darkness of winter. 

Many formal and informal rituals during this time are often about making way for light, noticing light, and preparing for the growth and renewal that spring brings. Like the darkness of winter, spring renewal happens every year. Perhaps grounding to this rhythm could help us see beyond ourselves in ways that can feel as powerful as buds sprouting underneath the snow and soil.

Academic rhythms follow their own cycle, and it might feel too far from the start of the new term to think about “newness” and too far from the end of the term to think about the “renewal” of spring. But considering the anxiety and state of the world, especially for those who are connected to work that emphasizes a more just future for everyone: What might/does observing rhythmic and seasonal shifts do to our mindset, our teaching, our writing, our research, and ourselves as activists and thought leaders? 

I know for me, I have been leaning into the time of the year to look at writing and research that has literally been buried on my desk and assessing what has the strength to come to light in the pockets of time I have for this work. The long dark nights will be ending (sadly, for this night owl 😉), so I am actively thinking about how the light and the dark of days will structure the time I have for writing; there will be fewer cozy blankets of darkness enfolding me as I write in the quiet and still winter nights. 

Last week, Merriam-Webster’s Instagram account posted a video demonstrating how the word “radical” has its origins in the Latin word for “root.” While time feels so fast moving right now because of the constant, rapid, and anxiety-inducing political actions happening over the last couple of weeks (/our lifetimes), I wonder if we can’t think of this time as an underground awakening of roots for the renewal of radical action to come? 

In my non-academic life, I spend time/thoughts with a place that has four food and entertainment festivals throughout the year. In January and February it is the Festival of Arts: a celebration of performance, visual, and culinary arts. While I don’t think the creators thought about this theme as deeply as I do, I am always inspired by the “art” theme for January and February because of how art and creativity help plant and germinate the seeds for something different – something new, something creative, something innovative. And that to move from a time/place/sense of dormancy, which is a natural part of the rhythms of life, we need a burst of colour and imagination and to play to have the space and light for new growth. How might this be part of academic work? How might we think of January and February as our own festival of the arts through the words we write, the methods we use, the engagements we have, the media we consume, etc.?

It’s easy to give into fear and doom because there’s so much to fear right now and we can see so much doom, but the natural cycles of nature help us better ground to where we are, what we’re doing, and what we can do. What might art, play, imagination bring to our lives right now? What might it bring if we gave space to it? I invite a sense of curiosity about what might grow by the time spring comes around because a new space that was been created by art and play. How might our reserves of strength grown stronger with play and rest?

Nothing I am saying here is new. This is fundamentally about what Indigenous peoples have been saying all along about honouring the land. Honouring the land as a deep spiritual and epistemological practice that shifts the world away from colonial frameworks. This is what “Indigenizing” or “decolonializing” is really all about – not new committees, not a required line item in a mission statement, not a land acknowledgement that does nothing else. But actually getting into an actual rhythm with and for the land. And then activating that rhythm for seeing beyond ourselves, making change, and growing something new.

What radical actions might grow when we pay attention to the invitation from the land for intentional – even art-full – stirring after rest?