What is Wintering?

Have you ever heard of “wintering”? Wintering is what birds do and some animals. Wintering is staying or residing in place through the coldest season of the year. It is a season of retreat and hibernation in nature. But what does that mean for human beings? Nothing. If we don’t take heed and notice to nature or if we are selective in our attention to the seasons. We honor and praise Spring, Summer, and Fall but Winter? Everything is dead we say or we think.

“Ignoring Winter is like having vacation days and sick days and not taking them. They don’t roll over either.”-Nicole Jackson.

Wintering for human beings is what it is for nature. It is a time of doing exactly what we scream and moan about during the other seasons. It’s about REST and REGENERATION. It’s about REFLECTION and EXHALING. It’s a slow walk out of one season into another. “It (Winter) is the PAUSE button of life.” -Nicole Jackson . Life is like nature. It is CYCLICAL. It’s no wonder you burn out in Spring when you should be “springing” it is because you didn’t take what was offered to you so quietly yet obviously in winter. You know that snow day or week? You know those cancelled plans? They were cancelled and you decided to find something else to be busy with. You know that weekend it was the perfect time to stay in but you went out because you couldn’t be bored.

I don’t believe that you are bored (And even if you are, it’s not such a bad thing. Your brain and body needs time to be still. Your mind needs time to ponder in nothingness.) it’s just that you don’t know what to do with time that is not filled in by the hour. You don’t know what to do with the lull of life. When there is a lull in a conversation some people embrace it and some keep yapping so they don’t have to embrace it. They call it awkward but it’s not awkward silence we are talking about. It’s a lull.

Wintering is also perseveration. What would you like to preserve? Perhaps your sanity. Perhaps all of the good that has happened from Spring to Fall. Perhaps your home. Consider Winter the prime opportunity for all that has been said in this paragraph, the ones above and this quote below.

“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 that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising 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.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

~Nikki