Hi friends, I’m Michelle from Opting Out, based in Brighton, UK. Here I share regular posts on slow and seasonal living, rest, and opting out of burnout culture, plus my weekly Weekend Mood Board of what’s currently inspiring me. Subscribers also get access to the asynchronous Slow Reading Group, and occasional yoga nidra audios.
It’s my dream to create a community of misfits, questioners and resters. Are you in? ✨
Connecting with Nature as an Anti-Capitalist Practice
In a world that measures worth by productivity, speed and output, connecting with nature can feel radical. To slow down, to notice the seasons, to listen to the rhythms of the earth - this is not hippie nonsense. It is quietly, powerfully anti-capitalist.
Capitalism asks us to produce relentlessly, to optimise, to ignore cycles that don’t serve immediate profit. We are taught that time is money, that we should always be ‘on’, that rest is a luxury. The ethos of constant production disregards the wisdom in ebb and flow, in periods of both creativity and dormancy, in quiet observation.
Historically, this disregard has roots in the enclosure of the commons. Land that was once shared, a space for gathering, for community, for mutual support, was privatised, fenced off, monetised. The rhythms of communal care and seasonal attunement were replaced by market logic. Capitalism, in many ways, is built on severing us from the natural world and its cycles, training us to value extraction and speed over stewardship and presence.
By slowing down and reconnecting with the land, the seasons, and the simple act of noticing, we resist that logic. We reclaim time that isn’t dictated by profit, attention that isn’t harvested, and awareness that isn’t outsourced to algorithms. Nature becomes a teacher of patience, of impermanence, of sufficiency. It reminds us that life unfolds in cycles, that rest is necessary, and that productivity is not the measure of worth.
This is where TEND comes in. In this new offering, gatherings are designed to nurture that attunement to the elements, to each other, and to ourselves. In TEND, we create space to slow down through yin and mindful yoga, explore our relationship to the seasons through the Taoist five elements of the year, and connect in a way that values presence over output. Journaling, reflection, meditation, and gentle embodiment become practices of resistance: choosing care, community, and alignment over the extraction and efficiency that capitalism demands.
TEND is a small-scale, living response to a culture that glorifies exhaustion. It is a chance to practice noticing the cycles, tending to ourselves and our communities, and finding richness in what the world offers naturally, rather than what we are told to extract from it.
Connecting with nature is not just restorative. It is political. It is a reclamation of time, attention, and care from systems that seek to commodify them. And in that reclamation, we remember how to live fully, gently, and in alignment with what truly matters.
The doors to TEND are open now! This week, I will share a yin yoga practice inspired by the incoming year of the Fire Horse. Live sessions begin at the end of March, where we explore the wood element.
As well as live yoga + meditation sessions, there are monthly seasonal wisdom circles and reading circles. We will gather to reflect on the elemental wisdom of each season.
I would love for you to join us. There is currently a special launch offer on annual memberships, but you might prefer a monthly or six monthly option.