Winter Wonder and Wander

“Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

Find the rhythm of winter and dance rather than box it.
Ease follows resistance.
Clarity comes with quiet acceptance.
Entering new space, the process of transformation becomes apparent.
The season of preparing, adapting, slowing, reflecting, replenishing.
Caterpillar work.
Renewal and metamorphosis.
Butterfly training.
May you embrace the gift of wintering.
The precipice for spring.
Do the unfashionable things.
Enter the crucible.

“It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it’s essential.” – Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Full interview with Katherine May on the On Being podcast.