Welcoming Stillness
Wherever you are reading this from—perhaps near a window fogged with the warmth of your home, from a lamp-lit kitchen table, or with a mug between your palms after a morning walk—you may have noticed how December asks us to slow down in a different way than November did. The light is gentler now, quieter. The year is tucking itself in. What is your spirit pausing over in this darker season?
Last week, I stood on the shoreline at Bowman Bay as the tide crept back over stones still holding the memory of cold night air. A single gull skimmed the surface, its wings catching a seam of pale gold on the water. In that moment, I felt the truth of this season: there is still movement, still becoming, even in dormancy.
This month’s Garden Guide leans into that notion, inviting you to see December not as an ending, but as a threshold. And over at Lord Hill Regional Park, walking beneath dripping cedars, you can see how brown—deep, textured, alive—is its own kind of color. Our forests know this. Our soil knows this. Your garden knows this too, even now.
In “Where the Wild Still Lives,” we explore the small, essential gestures that prepare the garden for the returning light—mulching paths, protecting perennials, tending structures that hold the quiet work of winter. Meanwhile our Permaculture Article continues our slow arc toward systems that nourish us all year long, asking us to notice how the land teaches through patience, layering, and restraint.
And if you read “Where Starlight Settles,” take notice of the hush of early evenings settling over the Skagit River—water moving like a steady exhale beneath the indigo rise of Sauk Mountain. What does the darkness reveal in your own garden? What invitations arrive only when the world is still?
This is the time to listen. To root. To imagine quietly.
And on a quiet morning, the low sun reaches through bare alder branches, turning frost into a brief field of light. Your breath joins the mist rising from the valley. What small ember of intention do you want to carry with you into the coming year?
And as always, know that Eco-Restore is here to support you—whether you’re planning for next year’s design projects, seeking guidance on winter stewardship, or wanting to walk your space with intention before spring comes rushing back in. Sometimes the most transformative work happens now, in the planning, dreaming, and resting.
May the soft light find you, wherever it lands.
