Leisha In Ecuador we do not experience winter in the way I once understood it. There is no snow settling into silence, no frozen ground insisting that everything withdraw. And yet the seasons still speak here, only in a different dialect. The land moves between dry and rain, between dust and saturation, between restraint and overflow, and if you pay attention you can feel the same invitation to adjust and to deepen.
Recently I have felt an internal season shift of my own. There are moments in life when unexpected news arrives and quietly rearranges your priorities. You may not name it publicly, yet inside something becomes clearer and more urgent. The question is no longer how much can I build, but what must I protect. Not how far can I expand, but what truly matters if time feels more precious than it did before.
I used to feel winter as permission. It was a sanctioned hibernation where productivity softened and introspection felt natural, where roots could grow without anyone asking what visible results were being produced. I miss that rhythm at times. Yet I am learning that the dry season here carries a similar intelligence, because when the rains pull back the trees do not panic. They measure their energy more carefully and draw from deeper reserves.
The dry season clarifies essentials. It exposes what is sustainable and what was simply excess during times of abundance. Here in Ecuador the trees do not shed all their leaves in a theatrical gesture. They adjust their metabolism. They slow certain growth. They conserve moisture. They stretch their roots toward water that lies deeper than the surface layer. That stretching is rarely visible, yet it ensures survival and often produces greater strength. Resilience is not built in constant rain but in intervals of restraint.
And because Living Ground grows from my inner terrain, any shift within me inevitably touches the project. It has never been separate. It has grown from the same soil of conviction, risk, faith, and stubborn hope. When my internal climate changes, the ecosystem of the project must respond.
Living Ground moves through seasons as well. There are times when the café is full, the gardens are vibrant, workshops flow one into another, and ideas multiply faster than we can implement them. Then there are tighter seasons, when income slows, expenses feel heavier, and each decision must be weighed with care. Those seasons are not failure. They are recalibration.
If my own season calls for conservation, then Living Ground may need to conserve. That may mean narrowing focus, simplifying offerings, strengthening what is essential rather than expanding what is impressive. It may mean inviting others more fully into responsibility so that the organism does not rely on a single trunk for stability. A healthy ecosystem distributes strength.
The trees here also teach flexibility without drama. When heavy rains arrive after a long dry stretch, the soil must be ready to receive without eroding. Branches must be supple enough to bend without breaking. Rigidity snaps in storms, whereas adaptability preserves life. That lesson applies to business, to community, and to personal endurance.
In tropical forests, no tree truly stands alone. Roots intertwine. Nutrients are shared. Signals move through fungal networks beneath the soil. Stress in one area is absorbed and redistributed by the larger web. Living Ground must function in this way, not as a solitary vision carried by one person, but as a living network where support flows quietly and leadership is shared.
The absence of visible winter does not mean the absence of inward seasons. It simply means that conserving and shedding may look subtler and more internal. Hibernation here may appear as strategic slowing, careful budgeting, refining rather than expanding, and asking deeper questions about why we are here and what we are building before we pass through this life.
When something significant shifts your internal weather, pretending it is still the rainy season is exhausting. The wiser path is to honor the climate you are actually in and to direct energy toward roots rather than leaves. The rains will come again, as they always do. The growth that follows will reflect how wisely the dry season was navigated.
Living Ground is not a static structure. It is soil, people, ideas, meals, microbes, labor, hope, and courage woven together. Like any ecosystem, it must respond to changing conditions with intelligence rather than fear. If adjustments are required, if pace shifts, if certain branches are trimmed so that the trunk remains strong, that is not collapse. It is ecology.
The trees here have taught me that resilience is patient, strategic, and deeply rooted. What appears as restraint on the surface may be the most important growth happening below.
