Thoughts on Hopefulness

In the depths of the darkest hour, each year we are asked to find hope. From the most ancient rituals welcoming the birth of the new sun to the message of Christmas and Hannukah today, hope in the promise that life will have renewal and become better than its present state is offered once again in the darkness of winter.

We need that sense of hope to keep going, whether through the long, cold nights of winter, a raging pandemic, our own personal struggles. This year we especially battle loneliness, isolation, and the lack of (or noticeably altered version of) customary holiday festivities and gatherings. It could be easy to have a blue Christmas this year, which makes the work of kindling hopefulness in ourselves and each other even more vital.

Fortunately, hopefulness is contagious. In my recent Zoom needle felting classes with folk school students, many of them noted how the Christmas lights in their neighborhoods had gone up earlier this year and were even more spectacular than normal. I know that I too felt that urge to hang more lights and ornaments outside Farmstead, since there would be no one to view the customary Dicken’s village or vintage Santa collection. I wanted to bring joy and brightness into the parking lot for curbside pickup. I wanted to spread that joy and a sense of hope that we are all pulling for each other during these difficult times. It’s a comfort to know that this urge is happening all across the country, as witnessed by my students remotely joined the class from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky, New York, Iowa, Tennessee, and beyond.

A spirit of hopefulness is essential in homestead farming. There are successes and setbacks, beautiful days and fierce weather, magical moments with nature and horrific predator attacks, accomplishments and catastrophes. Sometimes I reach the end of the day just completely drained physically and mentally, wondering if I’ll be able to go on. And yet, my rate of getting back up the next morning and starting again is still batting at 100%, which shows that a period of rest is essential to the practice of hopefulness.

Birth is a time of hopefulness. It’s a promise of a new start, a new chance at life on the farm. On Thanksgiving Day, one of our heritage Kunekune sows gave birth to an adorable littler of piglets. They squirmed and squealed, trying to figure out how this thing called life worked. Baby animals have extreme hopefulness and trust in this process of life, even in their own tiny state of fragility. The birth of hope through the birth of a child is a story we all know intimately from the Christmas tradition as well.

As we consider kindling hopefulness and the holiday spirit for ourselves and each other, we can find birth metaphors all around us. The birth of a new year, the birth of the waxing sun (rather than the waning one that is leaving), and the birth of each new day. When we rise up in the morning, it is a chance to embrace that new birth—that gift of a new day that is so precious—and choosing how we shall be, moving forward.

Hopefulness is part of resilience, a skill we can all cultivate. It’s still honest about the present state, but it’s no longer trapped in the present state. It sees what could be, it trusts in the goodness of people and this process of life. And through the practice of hopefulness, we can offer that possibility and trust to each other.

What might the practice of hopefulness ask of us especially this year? Sit with this a while and see what rises to consciousness for you. Perhaps it is letting go of an expectation for how things have always been in the past, instead embracing a new (if still uncertain) future that could contain possibilities unimaginable within the present state. Hopefulness is an openness, and that means being willing to loosen our desire to control the outcome.

This week, take some time to consider hopefulness and how you can tend this in your heart and those around you. My hope is that by kindling this spirit, we all can find our way through this dark time with more light in our hearts, spring in our steps, and kindness for each other. See you down on the farm sometime.