Honouring the Fallow Moments
To regenerate your creative soil
In this beautiful mountain town where I live, each neighbourhood (barrio) has a patch of communal land called a milpa. Since Mesoamerican times, milpas have been used to grow three crops: corn, beans and squash*. Planted in rotation, each prepares the soil for the next. After a number of years cultivating these three food stuffs, the ground will then be left fallow and given time to regenerate and the milpa will be started elsewhere. Once the soil is rested, the process will start over. This time in regeneration is deeply important. It ensures that the soil will remain rich in nutrients over many decades. It ensures abundant crops for years to come.
I share this because I am currently in a moment of needing to regenerate my soils. I’ve had an interesting month since finishing my novel. I was EXHAUSTED. And what was more, I was totally surprised by the exhaustion. It was like my battery suddenly went flat when I thought it was still at least half full. I had to recharge and I had no choice but to honour that.
I wasn’t sad or down (like I was when I finished my other novels), I was just spent. I had left nothing off the page.
It wasn’t until finishing the novel and feeling that exhaustion that I realised just how hard I had been working cultivating my crop. It can be a tricky game this writing lark. I was loving it all so much and was so focused that I didn’t notice how tired I was.
I was like the soil at the end of a cycle of production and cultivation. I needed to rest in order to renew. As much as I felt like I should fight it (keep going, be productive), I had to remember that the soil’s phase of rest is just as important as it’s time producing nutrient rich crops. So I spent three weekends doing almost nothing, sleeping a lot and watching trashy TV (I didn’t even have brain space to read or watch anything remotely taxing).
So much in me wanted to push against it. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I had planned to spend the weeks after finishing my novel writing short stories but I had nothing. I had to trust the season of ‘non-production,’ and in reality, I had no choice. I had to honour the fallow time knowing that these moments of rest regenerate the creative soils allowing us to create for many years to come.
I am slowing feling regenerated again. The story writing brain isn’t back on yet, but I can feel some sparks…
What season are you in now? Are you resting and regenerating, tilling the soil or in adundant production? Do you recognize the need for these seasons? Are you good at allowing for the fallow times?
*Some barrios still use their milpas to grow these three crops and work as a community to keep them going. Other barrios, including the one I live in, now use their milpa to grow the pericón flower that is used to make crosses at the end of the rainy season that are seen on front doors across the town to ward off evil around Archangel Michael’s feast day. In Mexica (Aztec) times, pericón was traditionally used to protect the milpa from malas aires (bad energies) in the first days of the corn harvest.
A few celebrations ✨✨
This fallow time has also brought with it a few fruits of previous harvest that I’d love to share with you, lovely readers.
I was made an associate editor at Wallstrait Literary Magazine and I am absolutely delighted. I love being behind the scenes and reading so many wonderful stories. I am learning so much and I enjoy it immensely. We are closed for submissions over the summer but reopen in September.
My new novel placed in the Top 100 in the Bath Novel Awards. Apparently, there were almost 3000 entries so although I didn’t make the long-list I was very happy to have placed in the top 100.
One of my favourite short stories, The Medium, was published in The Westchester Review and I am over the moon. This story was rejected 15 times before it got this very special yes (and I didn’t change one word in that time).
I share these wins because I truly beleive it’s important to celebrate in writing journeys that can be filled with so many rejections and also to show how the fallow periods can be where we start to see the fruits of our labour.
Teas and Tales
Just a little update for the Teas and Talers. At the moment I am imaging re-starting our cosy monthly gatherings in the Autumn, but I may prepare a gathering over the summer if the inspiration strikes. In the meantime, I hope you are finding lots of inspiration while sipping delicious brews.
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Great post to let us all remember to honour where we are and to trust the process.
The reason I have [somewhere on my substack] the image of a cormorant is because after they have dived to get fish they need to dry out before diving again or their wings to waterlogged. I've got pictures of cormorants in my study to remind me that I need to do that.
A wise lady yesterday asked me how I was and I said I was tired but didn't know why, then I told her about hubby getting a new job, daughter moving to a town over 300 miles away, and us having building work done on the house - none of which, I thought, affected me. But it turns out that all those things are leaving me tired and I have to honour it and not keep trying to keep going.
Lovely to have your post to confirm it - and also lovely the timing of reading it because it wouldn't have gone so deep if I'd read it when I received it. X
Thank you for this. I can relate very well to what you are talking about — and this helps me know it’s all just part of the process.