gloom & doom, inside & out....

Winter in Perth gardens this year was gloomy... guys it was gross! No wonder it used to be viewed as the season dedicated to the slowing down and resting states of plants, animals and humans. Evolutionary mechanisms exsist for a reason you know, like hibernation, or how a tuber or root system will die off for the harsh season, calling it's own energy back for storage.

I'm not sure what happened to adhering to that concept but in July of 2025 - the garden starts to look alot like people start to feel. Gloomy, rigid, defensive, vigilant and cold. If ever there was a time to disconnect from nature it's during winter.  

No one (except for a new gardener ...or maybe an old one) wants to be out in a winter task list. Despite it being a task heavy season in residential spaces. July had most of the seasons storms compressed into the last two weeks and now in our first day of Djilba we are recieving a series of late downpours. 

Nature handles the duties of winter with fine tuned mechanics. We don't realise the light changing until its darker, earlier than usual. We have no perception of the amount of rain entering the aquifers, or of the accumulative amount of newly delivered top soil waiting in storm debris set to decay over the next year. We don't really understand what occurs underneath our feet in the dark, black soil. What sits, accumulates and alchemizes. 

But each year we trust that winter will arrive and stay - it is a real, returning phenomena and an uncomfortable disruption to our oh so comfy lives. Yes, you need an umbrella, you forgot your jumper, it rained, you got sick and so on. 

We must prepare for the inconvenience of change. This knowledge is a scaffolding but while in the trenches ... its gross man! It's sticky, wet and smelly. It's mouldy and transforming. It's comforting to know such ugliness in terms of the natural order of decay is not only permitted but essential for the next process.

In this state - this gloom - we are more likely to see ourselves as powerless, we are more likely to blame anything and everything around us for our disposition and we are more likely to gravitate towards people who confirm this idea. 

This is a cold, sad place to live but its comfortable, known and well rehearsed so many people choose to live there. 

Terrible views, neglected dead space, outdated wallpapers and half finished renovations but its a home nonetheless. To choose to make it better is not a choice that would bring about more comfort, infact it would be a big disruption. Much like winter itself.

So for this first blog I guess I'm just calling attention to the ways we work through what is necessary but uncomfortable. The ways we can cycle between a sheer avoidant force and cognitive repulsion towards change, especially one we are not prepared for - maybe in rock bottom type situations. Where there is only the totality of one option left to take and we have been stripped bare, polished by the storms wind and rain.

Other times we will stay comforting ourselves inside and perpetually avoid the cold conditions of self revival. We will get caught in our own lies, tunnel in, gather the ancillary of people around us to reinforce our narrative and there we can stay. Mind spinning on a negative. 

You can find it in a very quiet place -

Accountability is not in stagnant guilt, regret or anger toward yourself or others but in the daily humbling 'dusting off' process, you are the first responder out and about after a storm. You must survey the damage calmly and start to direct the clean up.

Thank you x Shinead Ruby.