Okay Kelly Hayes thanks for inspiring a (hopefully) last batch of tears to really wrap this thing up! But in all seriousness what a stunning love letter the last few pages of this conclusion are. The list of hopes for a better future are so moving, and the picture drawn is so beautiful, all the moreso knowing that these are active hopes, hopes for a future that the authors and interviewees and even readers are all working towards creating. It is at once inspiring and empowering and grounding to hear how much faith Hayes has in all of us and in the work being done. I genuinely want to print it out as a reminder of what it looks and feels like to reject cynicism and choose to believe.

Really incredible seasonality metaphor being presented here as a framework for understanding the rhythms of movement work and it ties so beautifully into the discussion of burnout.

I was initially uncomfortable with the suggestion that burnout was in a way a personal failure, almost egotistically self-sacrificial. But thinking about it more and reading through the chapter I can agree that it is kind of a choice, a choice to see yourself as irreplaceable and choose not to set up safeguards for your absence should you need one, and in doing so put the larger movement at risk. It isn't something unavoidable and par for the course. I like the framing of periods where you need to reduce your effort as a winter season because it is essential and it is natural and it is is morally neutral, unlike pushing endlessly and waiting for burnout to hit and then struggling to recuperate. Your winter season isn't just a not-summer but carries its own key function as a time for introspection and processing and return to baseline before the next period of growth. It's kind of like sleeping every night. I love that.

I think it's also really compelling to embrace the winter season purely in pettiness and rejection of the capitalist forces that demand otherwise.

"I believe one of the main reasons why it's so difficult for us to be in a rhythm of seasons nowadays is because of the nature of the global system that we're in, that is highly, extremely productivist, which is capitalism." Saavedra explained that capitalism "creates this expectation of what we call the eternal summer and this expectation that everyone should be in the eternal summer all the time."