Winter is perhaps my least favourite season. I get overly stressed, anxious, burnt out and stretched too thin trying to do everything. My social calendar can ramp up, especially in the lead up to the Winter Solstice and Christmas. The days are shorter and yet I try to stick to the same routine as Summer, trying to fit so much into a shorter day. How many times have I placed too much pressure on myself to be present everywhere, constantly interacting and doing? Far too much.
It took me a few years to really listen to the magic of this season. Winter is a time of stillness, reflection, cosiness and boundaries. I could see it, all around me; the earth dies back returning once more to the ground. Animals shelter and hibernate. Nature places an emphasis on using little energy and what is used, is directed into nurturing and preparing the seed for next year. So why don’t I do the same? This is where the magic of Winter lies. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and so to try and have the same routine I would have as at the Summer Solstice- the longest day of the year- feels so wrong to me; and this is the route of my anxiety and stress in this season. I don’t slow down.
This year is the first that I’ve truly embraced that slowness. Like the trees around me, I’ve stripped everything back to allow me to sink into the softness of Winter. It can feel strange embracing this slowness, like going against the grain. Honestly it felt a little uncomfortable at first, but the more I listened, the more I realised that this uncomfortable feeling was from the expectations I held on myself from the society I live in, rather than nature. I found getting up later (still before the sunrise, but later than I was during the summer) and having a quiet, slow start to my day helped. I’ve spent a lot of mornings with my journal- writing the thoughts in my head, what I’ve accomplished this year and the goals I want for next year. I feel prepared for next year, to manifest the things I want to do, see and be; rather than just wishing for something without a plan of how I was going to achieve it, and hoping for the best. This void space of winter is a great time to sit with the quiet and stillness and look inwards; it allows us to review the year we’ve had and what our priorities are. I’ve found journalling is the best way for me to do this; you may find a different way.
As the days turned to weeks, I’ve found myself developing new habits. I’m meditating more, I’m journalling more. I’m noticing the shift in seasons more looking around my garden or on a walk with my family. I’m feeling rested. This is another treasure of Winter- it’s a time of reset; a time to strip everything away and introduce changes- however subtle- to begin to develop new habits. I used to set new year’s goals- just like so many people I know- and stick to them for maybe a month or so before they get dropped, forgotten about before the habit has had a chance to form. I had the mindset of “I’ll start that in the New Year” or “Well I can’t maintain this so I’ll just give up” and this Winter came with a realisation- I don’t need to wait for “New Year.” How many new starts I celebrate on the wheel of the year; Samhain, 31st December, Spring Equinox are but a few. Each new moon is a new start. I’d placed too much influence and importance on 1st Jan; so instead this year it’s been a gradual shift. From Samhain, I began stripping things back, and giving myself space for stillness. Now that Winter is here, I am fully enveloped in this stillness, but the seeds are already sewed for the coming of Spring; the habits already forming so that when nature’s energy- and my energy- returns with Brighid’s quickening rod in February, I’m not trying to develop new habits, but solidify them and fully embrace them as a habit, not one that is beginning to build. How will this work? I don’t know, not yet. Time will tell.
Solstice Blessings to everyone- may this season of stillness and inner reflection bring you peace, joy and space to begin sewing the seeds of your next spiral.