On the perpetual nature of uncertainty
Let’s just say I’m certain around my current state of uncertainty
October 26, 2025
A couple weeks back on a perfectly pleasant Wednesday afternoon with all the windows open to allow the house to breathe one last time before being buttoned up for winter, I updated my writing catalog. It’s a mundane task but a valuable one. It’s where I organize and keep track of the weekly essays and correspondences I send to you. It’s one of the things I’ve done behind the scenes during this break from publishing. This and giving headspace to what’s next.
unbeknownst to me I took this photo of myself. we’ve all done it. sometimes they end up capturing the moment better than I ever could deliberately.
In the process, I realized that the first email I sent was six years ago, practically to the day. The 27th of October 2019. Another interesting twist was that I sent that first email while at my friend’s house in Amsterdam after a week long photography and artists retreat in southern France. Coincidentally, next week I’ll be visiting that same friend, (same house) in The Netherlands. An arc has come full circle.
So six years have passed. And I don’t know about you, but I’m the same yet totally different. I jump rope regularly to hip hop music (thanks Cynthia). I’m very close to menopause, hallelujah. I’ve totally made a 180 in my approach to farming and gardening, which has been transformative for the land and my soul. I want to write a little book, spirit of slow. I still worry, but way less than before. All I want to do is sink my time, energy, and resources into being with the people I love. My insistent need to push and do has plummeted. I see magic everywhere.
Basically, I’m in a state of re-configuring. Nothing less, nothing more. Simultaneously I’m acclimating to the reality of not knowing what next to do while emboldened by the fact I’ll eventually figure it out. In short, I’m becoming comfortable with uncertainty. Or I finally see that certainty and uncertainty coexist, side by side. Uncertainty need not be worrisome. It resides in the realm of awe, wonder, and curiosity.
This short pause and retrospective has made me consider, not necessarily what to add, but rather how to be more present to my heart and life. To extend the pause. There’s also something wild about writing and then coming back to it after a period of time. Perhaps this is true for any artistic self-expression. Who was the person who wrote this? Where is she now? Am I still there within the words?
Leafing through several of the Slow Living interviews reminded me how wise it is to remain attentive. Whether certain or not, truly paying attention is a form of generosity; a way in, an unmixed and undivided prayer.
Much love and may you have a restful Sunday.
Yours, Erin
Excerpts from the Slow Living Interview Series
Experiencing time with our senses and the seasons rather than human-constructed time lends itself to shifting time awareness. In this way we may find footholds to have a relationship with the land. Yes, that’s a way to engage in slow time or slow living. From Locating Yourself within the Web of Relationships with Micah Mortali
For me, I love attending to materials, life’s pleasures, textures, food, cloth, the air, waters…anything visceral —love, bodies, lovers, books, words. All of these things have a corporeal element to them. My children, their hair, baths, showers. As somebody who goes quickly, I think slow living means tending to those things along the way. It doesn’t literally mean slowing down. It’s more of a relation to what I do. When I’m attuned with the world, with what’s flowing in and out of me, I have a sense of slow time. From Open yourself with Erin O’Connor
I consider Apollo [my cat] my connection to nature. He is always at his most raw and instinctual state. Sometimes I’ll look at him and think how wild it is that two completely different species can live in harmony this way. I would love to live in the countryside so he can live like a normal cat ... I think all of nature’s creatures deserve that. I know he’s living a pretty good life in the meantime :) From Harmony, even when strikingly different with Alyssa Beltempo
I’m fascinated with the concept of time, our perceptions of it, and our cultural obsession with the lack of it. Slow living isn’t a matter of putting your feet up in a hammock and doing nothing. Slow living is about our relationship to the movement of time and how creatively we can expand or contract it through our awareness. From It only takes shifting my attention with Claire Ragozzino
P.S. I’ve included below some juicy excerpts from the interview series below and a few pictures from Maui.
Pi'ilanihale Heiau
Haleakalā crater
Kahalui Harbor