How Are You Built for This Season?
By Kwayera Archer
“We do not rush the roots. We learn to listen to the soil.”
– Baobab Leadership™, Module 1
February: Fire Beneath the Snow
The Lunar New Year arrived under the sign of the Fire Horse – a season of ignition, velocity, and courage that does not wait for permission.
And almost immediately, the sky began doing what it sometimes does when a threshold is near: it darkened.
A new moon drew the night into its deepest shade – not emptiness, but incubation.
In many cultures, this is seedtime: the moment we choose what we will water with our attention. Not just for the next few days, but for the arc ahead. Because what we rehearse becomes rhythm… and rhythm becomes a future we live inside.
Then came the eclipse cycle – an astronomical alignment where light is not erased, but rearranged.
For scientists, eclipses reveal structure: the geometry of orbit, the choreography of gravity, the precision of shadow crossing glow.
For traditions that read the sky as a teacher, eclipse seasons are known for interruption – for the way they press hidden patterns to the surface, not as superstition, but as consequence: when the familiar light shifts, we see what we have been avoiding.
And here in the Northeast, the storm arrived with its own doctrine.
Snow fell with insistence. Wind rose. Roads quieted. The world became hushed in that particular way snow creates – because snow absorbs sound, changes the acoustics of a neighborhood, lowers the hum of human movement until you can hear your own mind again.
It is beautiful.
And it is also real.
Because while some of us receive this as romance – a rare quiet, a forced exhale – others are shut in. Elders become harder to reach. Workers lose their usual pathways to stability. Some people live inside homes where the ability to leave is safety, and the storm narrows options.
This is where the month becomes more than a mood.
This is where the spiritual cannot be separated from the social.
This is where ecology becomes ethics.
And then – without asking permission, without ceremony – two birds.
A bird in the midst of blizzard conditions.
Then a second.
Still flying.
Still perching.
Still alive in the moving white.
Here is what science says: birds survive storms through a fierce intelligence of design. They hold higher body temperatures than humans, trap warm air in feathered layers, and reduce heat loss by sheltering in evergreens, cavities, and protected ledges. Their feet lock onto branches through tendon structure, conserving energy. Wind is the true adversary, and still they endure.
Here is what the old teachings say: birds are messengers not because they are magical, but because they move between realms – ground and sky, storm and shelter, visible world and invisible knowing.
And here is what February whispered to me in the same breath:
Fire is forward motion.
Snow is forced listening.
Eclipse is reorientation.
Bird is adaptive courage.
They are not separate events.
They are one curriculum: When conditions intensify, life does not only push forward – it also becomes more precise.
It learns where to perch.
When to shelter.
What to conserve.
What to carry.
And what must be released before the next flight.
This is not a month asking us to dream vaguely.
This is a month asking us to build structure for what we know we are here to embody.
As I watch the branches hold their weight and the birds find their balance, I am reminded – again – of the Baobab.
Because what we are witnessing outside is not weather alone.
It is design.
Design shaped over time.
Design that does not panic under pressure.
Design that anticipates extremes.
Design that stores before it spends.
Design that bends before it breaks.
And when I think of design like that, I think of the Baobab.
Not as a symbol to decorate a page – but as a living architecture of endurance.
The Baobab grows in climates that test everything. Heat. Drought. Sudden flood. It expands its trunk not for spectacle, but for storage. It carries within itself what it may later need. It releases leaves when conservation is required. It does not confuse dormancy with death.
What looks still is often strategic.
This is ecological intelligence.
And ecological intelligence is leadership intelligence.
In Baobab Leadership Activation™, we speak often about internal reservoirs – the quiet disciplines, the stored insight, the cultivated character that allows a person to remain steady when conditions shift.
Not reactive.
Not brittle.
Not performative.
Steady.
The storm outside my window is not separate from that teaching.
The birds endure because their bodies are built for variance.
The trees that survive are those whose roots distribute weight and whose fibers allow flex.
The Baobab does not resist the climate.
It is shaped by it.
And so, the question February places before us is not:
“How do we avoid intensity?”
But rather: “How are we built for it?”
Fire invites boldness.
Snow invites stillness.
Eclipse invites reorientation.
The convergence is not contradiction.
It is calibration.
And perhaps this is the deeper invitation of this season – not simply new beginnings, but structural refinement.
To examine what we are storing.
To notice where we are rigid.
To ask where we must become more adaptive.
To strengthen what supports others – not just ourselves.
Because ecology teaches something essential:
Nothing survives alone.
The storm reveals interdependence.
The quiet reveals inner architecture.
The future reveals whether we designed with foresight.
And this is why Baobab matters now. Not as metaphor. As method.
As a way of cultivating leadership that is rooted, flexible, and capable of holding both fire and snow – momentum and pause – visibility and depth.
If you feel the convergence of this season in your own life – if you sense that something is accelerating while something else is asking you to listen more closely – then this is the work.
Build the structure.
Strengthen the roots.
Store what matters.
Release what does not.
Design for longevity.
The storm will pass.
The design will remain.
And here is where I must say something plainly.
We live in a time where almost anything can be accessed at our fingertips.
Information is abundant.
Courses are downloadable.
Frameworks are searchable.
Strategies are replicable.
You can learn what to do in a matter of minutes.
But becoming cannot be downloaded.
Character cannot be streamed.
Integrity cannot be copied.
Ecological intelligence cannot be skimmed.
And that is the distinction.
Baobab Leadership Activation™ is not about adding more information to your life.
It is about cultivating the architecture of who you are becoming.
Because who you are determines how you move through fire.
Who you are determines how you endure snow.
Who you are determines whether pressure refines you or fractures you.
Technology can teach tactics. But ecology teaches alignment.
Baobab is not a productivity system.
It is a formation process.
A journey into the design of your own leadership – rooted, adaptive, interdependent, conscious of impact.
It asks not simply: “What do you want to achieve?”
But: “Who are you choosing to become in relationship with the world around you?”
Because every system – natural or human – eventually reveals its design.
And in the end, all power rests there.
Not in performance. Not in volume. Not in speed. In structure.
In values lived consistently. In presence under pressure. In the quiet authority of someone who has done the internal work.
If this season is revealing something within you – if the convergence of fire, eclipse, storm, and stillness feels less like coincidence and more like invitation –
Then perhaps it is time.
Not to consume more. But to become more intentional.
And becoming is not accidental. It is cultivated.
If you feel the shift this season – the fire pushing you forward, the storm asking you to listen, the eclipse revealing what must realign – then this is not a coincidence.
It is a call to design yourself consciously.
Baobab Leadership Activation™ is the space where that design begins.
Not with tactics. With roots.
Not with performance. With structure.
If you are ready to move beyond information and step into formation – to build the internal architecture that can hold momentum without losing integrity – then begin here.
Download the Baobab Foundations Key and enter the work. Or step fully into the Activation and join a circle of leaders choosing depth over noise.
The future belongs to those who are built well.
Design yourself accordingly. Become who your future requires. Begin now.
– Kwayera
Download the Baobab Foundations Keys Here
Join the Baobab Leadership Activation™
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| If this reflection stirred something in you, do not let it dissolve into distraction. |
| Choose your next step |
| 1. Begin the FormationEnter Baobab Leadership Activation™ and cultivate the roots that will carry you forward. |
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| Become who your future requires. Begin now. |
| With gratitude,The Global Ase Team |
Global Ase School of Conscientious Leadership
Brooklyn, New York 11217, USA
