Ecotone Era
A belated questioning of autumnal greyness and asking those annual existential questions around 'letting go'.
Tiny Ghost, Big Feels // Dispatches from the fine print of everyday emotions
003 - October 2025
💌 Status update: Questioning this autumnal greyness while simultaneously loving the crinch-crunch of the leaves
🎧 Currently listening: Garbage's latest album "Let All That We Imagine Be the Light"
💬 Discussed: Seasonal transitions / how do we let go?
Ecotone Era
...it is likely no one but me noticed this newsletter is late. Until this moment when I told you, and now we all know and have to sit in it together.
I recently learned that the transitional area between two plant communities is called an ecotone. As a result, it has some characteristics of each and often also has species that are not found in the overlapping communities. It is also possible for an ecotone to appear where one body of water meets another (an estuary) or where land meets water (a marsh). The term itself comes from ecology + tone. The root of this being tonos or tension, so in other words: a place where ecologies are in tension.
And I don't know about you, but I am just really feeling that right now. I feel like that might make sense somehow in autumn as we near Halloween and Day of the Dead, or when the veil between worlds is more thin.
It can feel weird and surreal to be in that place of overlap, to be 'both and'. But the lesson of the ecotone is that is where the most voluminous biodiversity lives, that is where the really interesting things take place.
What expectations do you have that are eroding your peace?
Is what you're holding onto also holding onto you?
Why are you holding on? Does it feel good or does it just feel familiar?
If feel like you are in a bit of an overlap space habitually and not quite sure whether to retreat into the familiar or proceed into the unknown, consider that the 'in-between' overlap might just be the ticket for now if you make it cozy enough.
See you on the internet.
(your tiny ghost in residence)
—Allison