A few years ago, I remember snuggling in for a snow day and reading Katherine May’s hybrid memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Renewal in Difficult Times. At the time I felt a little guilty for laying down and reading a book when I could have been cleaning the house or paying a bill. However, her book was a good reminder that rest is important and that, like all creatures, we need to acknowledge our seasonal and energetic rhythms. Wintering, used as a verb, offers a profound shift in perception. She writes:
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 it’s crucible.
Questions #1: How do you winter? How is winter a crucible for you?
Last month, I was traveling in England and decided to read Katherine May’s (she is from the UK) most recent book, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. This, too, has a lot of profound morsels to savor and digest and I found Enchantment to be a good travel companion as I was taking in new landscapes and historic sites. Here are some tidbits that stood out to me:
If we start to re-enchant the most fundamental parts of our existence—the food, the objects that we use, the places we inhabit—we can begin to restore our connection between our bodies and the land.
We heal these rifts by inviting back gentleness into our relationship with the earth, by allowing meaning to take hold again.
Question #2: How do you invited back gentleness with your relationship with the Earth?
Take some time with these questions. Maybe they intertwine for you or maybe they lead to different threads? Respond in verse or prose, your choice!
If you are interested in learning more, Katharine May has a great Substack paged call The Clearing. Be sure to check it out.
These prompts were created for my biweekly writing group at Village Books in Bellingham, WA called Environmentalists Anonymous. Join us in person every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 10:30 am in the Readings Gallery (1st Floor). Open to anyone.