It's still wintertime

Rooting in nature's seasons even as the calendar year marches on

Captured my Mary Claire Photo at Cedar Wilde, Late Winter 2022

Even my dog knows it’s winter.

I thought something was wrong with him at first. He seemed sluggish and slow. Sleepy and snuggly. Where’s his usual energy, I thought to myself. Why isn’t he more boisterous, I wondered. It’s because it’s wintertime. Even his little doggy body knows it’s time to slow down.

Ever since living seasonally became one of my regular spiritual practices, I've been struck by the irony of winter somehow being the busiest and most active time in the calendar year. I’ve felt it on every side. Prior to the holidays, there was the hustle to get as much done as possible before offices shut down for a couple of weeks. Now that the new year is underway, there’s the pressure to organize life, set goals and make sure we have the right systems in place to make it all happen. It’s been a frenzy, a mad dash, a blur even.

But then you step outside and you hear the frost crunch beneath your feet. You see the bare trees dancing naked in the winter breeze. You see your breath as smoke flowing from your mouth, and your body knows. She knows the truth. Wintertime is here.

Alex and I visited an old swamp back in early December. It’s the oldest cypress-tupelo swamp forest in the world. Some of the trees there are literally one thousand years old. As we wandered through this swamp on a cool morning, another wanderer-in-the-woods (a fellow hiker) told us about a sleeping owl he saw perched over the lake, about half a mile down the path from where we were standing. We continued our journey along the boardwalk until we reached the dock, and then the kayaking drop-in that our fellow hiker told us about.

“Once you reach the stairs down to the kayak-drop in, look up to your left and you’ll see the owl sleeping there,” he said.

It took us a few rounds of spinning in circles, eyes pinned to the canopy, before my eyes finally settled on the owl’s milk chocolate brown feathers. We were standing at his or her back, so we couldn’t see its face. The owl was large and very round, a bit puffy due to the cold no doubt. Binoculars in hand, we giggled with satisfaction as we paced around the dock to get a better view of the bird’s frontside. Unfortunately a large swath of Spanish moss was covering his face so we were unable to take in the fullness of his closed and resting eyes. But something about the owl’s stillness has stayed with me. He was almost completely camouflaged there, in total rest.

While January has arrived with much to do and even more to become, I’m wondering what it might look like for us to remember that it’s still wintertime. It is still appropriate to slow down, to rest our bodies, to snuggle up by fireplaces and to embrace all the coziness this time of year offers. This is as much a reminder to myself as it is to all of you. I struggle to navigate the tension between natural cycles and seasons and the more linear, calendar we follow in modern society. They carry different energies it seems and being a modern person requires that we hold both of these orientations at once. January is both a time of new beginnings and a time of quieting into the darkness that winter brings.

Practically, while I’m back to work this week, I’m thinking about having a bonfire. There’s nothing quite like settling in on a cold night and watching the flames dance while in good conversation with friends. Sitting around a fire with others holds a sort of mystery to it and I find it’s one of the best ways to remind my whole body that it’s at home in the rhythms of the created world.

How are you staying tethered to this winter season? How are you rooting into nature’s rhythms while also holding onto the traditional calendar of our time? I’d love to know.

Take care.

Bethaney

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