Feasting

I pulled a card with the word Feasting on it.

From a winter oracle deck. The concept is known to me. At face value, a jovial, nourished sort of idea. It wasn’t until I sat with it that I realized it made me uncomfortable. 

There was a deep, silent, suppressed discomfort there.

At first the discomfort was about the complicated idea of feasting for a girl who grew up with slimfast and special k diet fads. But I promptly told those intrusive thoughts to shut the fuck up. Then the discomfort unfolded into billionaires. But as I reflected, billionaires aren’t feasting, they are hoarding; sitting on piles of money and power at the expense of our planet and its people.

No, my discomfort with feasting came from somewhere deeper, quieter, and far less literal.

Winter feasts originated as a gesture of abundance in the scarcity of winter. Food was scarce, the nights were long. Crops and harvests were far away. And we feasted on the winter solstice as a gesture of profound and confident trust that the crops would return, and someday we would have enough again.

Feasting was never meant to be a ruinous, unsustainable act of over-consumption. It was a temporary and willful dedication to hope.

And oddly enough, it was this idea of feasting - having enough - that exposed the hidden roots of my own self-imposed scarcity.

How can I feast, truly, guiltlessly, if somewhere deep in me I never believe there will be enough?

And for the purpose of this conversation I do mean, very specifically, self-imposed and psychological scarcity - not the legitimate scarcity of basic wants and needs (re: see billionaires above) - but the metaphorical sense of scarcity.

And in the metaphorical sense, time and energy scarcity were (are?) my poison of choice. If I use my time and energy, they will be gone with no guarantee if or when they will be re-sourced. I will not have enough time or energy to fulfill my commitments, my life, my relationships, and myself.

Ironically, before I drew this feasting card, I had decided to take three weeks off from work. I budgeted hard and made it happen. I guess on some level I was ready for the feast, before I had the name for it.

And so I feasted this winter on time and energy. In these three weeks I took back all my time and all my energy from all the places I had lent it out. 

And here’s the thing, in my shameless feasting, my relationship with energy and time has begun to heal. I recall the ancient memory of what enough feels like. What it is to be full. I can return to less now. Through the scale of abundance, I remember enough.

Feasting is a light in the darkest hours of winter reminding us to laugh and eat and drink in the face of scarcity, in whatever form scarcity may take for us. 

At 11:59pm, I ended 2024 quite literally feasting with friends.

At 12:01 am, I began 2025 the same way.

I think I will continue in this spirit for the rest of the year.

I will feast on my free time, even and maybe especially, when it feels scarcest.

For 2025, I hope you feast occasionally, but heartily, on what fills you. Whatever deeply nourishes you. Wholly. And guilt-free. These things will not run out, and will not ruin you, although they may have seasons.

And if you don’t know what nourishes you anymore - coming off that season myself - I hope you feast with your heart by your side as frequently as you can handle. 

Feast on whatever joy, kindness, community, stillness, laughter, play, cathartic tears, and family, chosen or given you can find, until your truth comes back and sits down with you for a drink and reminds you gently, and lovingly.

Happy 2025, friends.