Composting the old year, planning the new
On a year of "watching the light" on Substack
Every year in my garden, at this time of year, I find myself gazing out over the soon-to-be-slumbering landscape, and considering what I’ve learned about growing this year. Here on Substack, I’m doing the same.
In my garden, I work to pluck browning and rotting plants from the ground that are finished, or that never really quite got going, and I place them into the compost bin for my hungry worms.
I also begin to think about the bag of bulbs, still sitting in the warmth of my garage, that I have yet to put into the hardening soil. I think about the formerly-fallow beds that I have carefully mulched this year, and whether those places are now ready for the spring blooms I want to plant there.
Finally, as I wrote about in “Watching the Light,” I think about the parts of the garden that will never get enough sunlight to grow much more than a mountain range of frozen mud, studded here and with broken plastic trucks and dented t-balls. I meditate on what it would mean to come to a place of liberating acceptance around that fact.
I am bringing that same thinking to my work here on Substack, as I approach the one-year anniversary of launching this newsletter. About what grew, what didn’t, and what’s yet to come. And I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.
Just as I have done in my garden, I’ve planted some tried-and-true post formats here on Initiation Writes – the essay, the interview. I have watched with delight as they attracted, like bee balm for butterflies, the most delightful readers in the world. (That’s you!) I am humbled to share that Initiation Writes is now read across 36 US states and 25 countries.
I also tried a few experiments in 2023, as I do every year in my garden. I wrote an advice column, simply because I wanted to. I found I care more about getting it right for others than I do about making every one of my personal posts a perfect work of art, so it was harder than expected! (Props to
and for the labor these authors put into this, season after season.)Meanwhile, I pulled together some how-to guides and resource roundups out of sheer enthusiasm for the subject matter, like this guide to navigating Complicated Mothers Day and this piece on highly sensitive writers on Substack. Like the arugula and shishitos we planted offhandedly this year, tucking them into a few empty spots at the last minute, these posts fed so many more mouths than expected that I am eager to think about how I might do it all again next year.
To that end, I’ve recently turned on my “paid” button, which will allow me to consider how best to allocate my time and energy in 2024. I have in mind a few important new gardening projects, such as:
Creating new resources for readers (i.e. mindfulness meditations, community threads)
Creating new modes of accessibility for readers (i.e. audio recordings for longreads)
Creating more privacy protections for all of us (i.e. subscriber-only comment sections on more sensitive posts and threads).
Donating some portion of the proceeds to organizations that align with the values I write about in this newsletter.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.
That said, you are under no obligation to spring for a paid subscription, and if you pledged previously but would like to update your subscription preferences, here is more information to help you do that.
Whether you choose a paid subscription or just continue to join me here for free each week, I still plan to continue to check in with you about how we can be together in reciprocity, nourishing each other in what the Buddhists would call “right relationship.” That, to me, is far more important than the enticing opportunity, here in newsletter-land, to “go paid” or go home. This budding community is home to me. You’re perfect just as you are.
Right relationship … is the rich ground that nurtures our view of things as they are so we can enjoy the fruits of our actions and our connections to one another, both in this moment and for many years to come. — Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
As mentioned above, after years of gardening, I can look at my physical garden and use my own experience and intuition to see “things as they are.” That is, I can discern clearly what went down here. I know which crop failures were likely my fault and which were probably beyond my control. I already have a sense of which plants will be invited back next year, and which were simply a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again (h/t David Foster Wallace).
Writing a regular newsletter, especially here on Substack, is different. As bell hooks would say, “there is no all the time right” here — not on a platform that includes some of the brightest literary lights of our era, and also some of the darkest corners of the ideological spectrum, a platform that includes people making large paychecks and commanding huge audiences, as well as those who are just here trying to heal from a lifetime of hustling for that.
I have grown more confident this year as a writer that I can offer words that can comfort, heal, and name what needs to be named. But I need more time to “watch the light” here before I decide what and how to grow next.
The winter solstice seems like a good time to go inward for a while to do that, to think about my own answers before I emerge, inevitably, with more questions. Questions I’d like to pose to you in future posts and threads. There’s so much more I want to know about you — what you think, what you need to grow, and how I can help you do that.
So, the next time you hear from me will likely be in 2024. Thanks so much for reading and subscribing this year in the meantime. I am so honored that you have chosen to hold space for me in your inboxes over the last twelve months, and please trust and believe that I’m planning to continue sending whatever goodness I can offer your way, on the other side of the new year.
Xoxo,
Ryan
These reflections were lovely to read, and having just discovered your Substack I am looking forward to diving deeper into your writing and work here. I birthed my Substack in October and wonder what a year of publishing here will bring me. So far, it's been a joy. Wishing you a lovely holiday season.