🖤 In the Goo
On winter, liminal seasons, and choosing fewer things done with more care
As the year closes and winter settles in, I’m noticing how much I’m craving fewer things done with more care.
Less output.
More intention.
This will be my final post of 2025. I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off while my daughter is home for winter break. I’m so grateful that I have the flexibility to take some things off my plate this time of year, so that I can be more present with her and more present with the slowdown that nature is urging us to participate in. The longer nights. The stillness. The opportunity to listen for the kinds of things that only come to us in the dark.
As I reflect on this past year, a strange, sticky image keeps coming to my mind: caterpillar goo.
Yes, caterpillar goo.
It’s that stage when the caterpillar has dissolved inside its chrysalis - no longer a caterpillar, not yet a butterfly - but kind of an amorphous yet conscious, in-between state. Curiously, the caterpillar goo stage has come up again and again in conversations with friends, clients, and mentors in the past few weeks: as a way to describe that liminal, uncertain space many of us seem to be inhabiting.
Even yesterday, while listening to Mindy Pelz talk about perimenopause and aging with grace on Marie Forleo’s podcast, they were talking about being in their own goo phases.
My jaw dropped.
The goo again!
Do you feel the goo too?
I think part of it is the season we earthly beings are in, the northern hemisphere slipping into the deepest, darkest stillness of winter. Holidays are approaching to occupy our senses, the year is nearly done, and yet we hover in a space where we’re not entirely sure what’s coming next.
Which is fine, but my ambitious nature can’t help but wish for those dang butterfly wings to fully emerge!
It’s more than winter, though. Perhaps it’s the hormonal shifts of early perimenopause, or the hormonal and neurochemical shifts of motherhood, or a little bit of both (I celebrated my 40th birthday at her six-week checkup, after all). Or perhaps it’s a blend of life’s timing and the world around us crescendoing in ways that feel deeply out of control, misaligned with what we long for, practice, and hope for our children.
There’s a tension between surrendering and aching for MAJOR change.
That goo-y, liminal this-has-to-give energy.
But when? How? And in what ways?
It’s uncomfortable. It seems that the only explanation for those butterfly wings emerging is complete and utter magic (check this out! captured by the incredibly talented Dogwood Dyer). While the magic brews, I don’t have answers, but I wonder if maybe the only real action we can take is to make the liminal space more tolerable. To see the awe in the goo. To learn how to thrive in uncertainty, rather than resist it. To commit to fewer things done with more care.
In many ways, that’s what S E E D has always been about: providing a nurturing container exploring nourishing food and daily micro-rituals that cultivate self-trust in challenging times. Straight from the bio 😉
Looking ahead to 2026, I’m leaning into that same principle here on Substack: a simpler rhythm, two posts a month.
One will be deeply practical: a single nourishing component prepared with care, usable in many ways.
The other will be reflective: thoughts on motherhood, depletion, illness, ricocheting through time, and what it means to tend to ourselves all the while. I hope to make nourishment feel more doable, more intelligent, more intuitive … and always kind.
Before I step away for the rest of the year, I thought I’d leave you with a few posts from 2025 that you all enjoyed and that I hope can help you navigate uncertainty, nourish yourself, and find little pockets of ease in the day-to-day:
Summer Solstice Reflection
Kind of fun to revisit as we approach the Winter Solstice. A meditation on rhythm, light, and tending to our inner landscape - a reminder of the beauty in pausing and noticing where we are in the cycles of life.Spring Sheet Pan Dinner Framework
Simple, nourishing, and versatile, perfect for feeding yourself gorgeous veg with minimal effort. This was made for late spring - but there are some hearty winter veg ideas in there too!Power of Protein Workshop Takeaways
A grounding look at protein. How much you actually need, why it matters more than most of us realize (especially in depleted seasons), and why whole food sources will always outperform powders, bars, and macros math.
May your winter be still,
your heart full,
and your goo stage a place of quiet transformation.
With much love,
Denise
P.S. I made a L I M I N A L little playlist - a handful of tunes that feel uniquely human, a true celebration of the human voice, the human consciousness. For me, they are moving, something to wash over or through. Enjoy!
If you appreciate this work and you feel moved to give back, you can always buy me a coffee. This newsletter does take time, and every bit of support helps me keep creating, while raising a wild little one, growing this work, and staying steady in an unsteady world. Much love!
Enjoy these last days of 2025 with your daughter! Love you!