📮 Chloro-Com’ (EN) #6 — Dormancy

What if the real restart began with a pause? What dormancy teaches us about the new year.

🌍 Disponible en : (FR) version Française

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As the end of the year approaches, with its usual reviews and assessments, calendars fill up, resolutions circulate, and “2026 plans” bloom faster than spring buds.

But if we listen honestly to our bodies (and sometimes our minds), the momentum isn’t always there.

This letter is not an invitation to slow down.
It is an attempt to understand when the living world chooses not to act.

In recent days, a contrast has stood out to me:
outside, most living forms are not “starting again.”
They wait.
They grow quiet.
They store.

What if the best way to begin a year was less spectacular than what we are sold?

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When the living world chooses to wait

Dormancy is not a romantic version of hibernation.

Dormancy, n.
A state of biological inactivity marked by a temporary halt in development, characteristic of seeds and winter buds, whether vegetative or floral.

It is a precise strategy: when conditions become unfavorable (cold, lack of light, stress) many plants and seeds shift into a mode of active waiting.

At the surface, nothing seems to move.
No new leaves.
No new shoots.

And yet beneath, life consolidates, stores, repairs, prepares what comes next.

Dormancy is not abandonment.
It is a refusal to invest at the wrong moment.

My late-autumn pastures. Nothing grows. Everything is preparing.

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What dormancy changes in our relationship to time

Not every moment is a good moment to grow.

We often confuse calendar availability with inner availability.
Because a time slot exists, we assume it must be filled.

The living world works differently.
It chooses its windows of expansion.
It accepts that some periods are not meant for results, but for recalibration.

January is not always made for “producing.”
Sometimes, it exists simply to realign.

A pause can be chosen, not endured.
Dormancy is not collapse.
It is not “burning out” or “disappearing.”

It is a regulated decision:
→ reducing visible activity to stabilize what is invisible,
→ revisiting priorities,
→ clarifying what truly deserves to be nourished,
→ accepting a personal tempo, even when it runs counter to the social rhythm.

Future vitality is prepared during calm phases.
Buds are not formed in spring.
They are shaped long before, in silent, unspectacular periods.

Many of our future outcomes will depend on what we lay down now underground:
simpler systems, clearer choices, and sometimes, deliberate decisions not to act.

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If you’d like to try

I’d like to suggest a small ritual, free of performance pressure: the dormant week.

Choose one week in January during which you deliberately decide not to launch anything new.
No big project.
No new offer.
No major redesigns.

Just a protected stretch of time.

During that week, you can limit yourself to three modest gestures:

• clarify what you truly want to nurture in 2026 (three projects maximum)

• stop one thing that no longer deserves your energy

• put in place a micro-system that lightens your load (a routine, a tool, an appointment with yourself)

See this period not as a delay, but as a buffer zone.
A chosen dormancy, preparing a more accurate growth, at the right time.

You can rename this ritual in your own way — bud week, underground week, or any word that resonates with you.

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One question remains unresolved for me:

How can we tell, honestly, whether we are in true dormancy…
or simply avoiding what matters most?

The line is thin. Even the living world sometimes moves along its edge.

Perhaps we will explore that together in a future letter.

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The Vegetal Pause

In living systems, dormancy is not always experienced alone.
Some strategies rely on association, shared slowness, minimal balance.

The Symbiotic lichen (An association between a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium) is a beautiful example of this

👉🏻 Explorer this capsule

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I write these letters to observe how the living world relates to time, and what that changes in how we work, decide, and transmit.

This edition closes the year.
The next will open another question: when does the moment come to emerge from the ground?

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I’d love to know where you stand with this idea of pause.

Do you allow yourself a form of dormancy during this strategic period,
or do you feel pushed to restart at full speed?

You can tell me in the comments. I read everything, even if I don’t always reply immediately.

And if this edition might resonate with someone around you, feel free to share it.

PS. This is the last letter of 2025. The next one will be published in early January, on the 4th, unless the frequency evolves before then. In the meantime, I’m quietly reflecting on the pace of Chloro-Com’.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
I look forward to hearing from you.
—
Franz
Letting what matters circulate.

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To receive future letters