winter

Book Report: Wintering by Katherine May

/ nagneberg48 / 1 Comment

November 8, 2023

I don’t have much in common with Katherine May, the author of Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. She is much younger than I am and has a young son. She lives in the UK. She was diagnosed with Aspergers as an adult. But I identify with much of what she writes in this book.

The title alone spoke to me, for the idea of “wintering” totally seduces me. I am a winter person.

I bought and read this book when it was first published in 2020, but recently I felt tugged to re-read it. Actually, re-reading favorite books right now interests me more than reading books new to me, but that will be the topic of another post. Stay tuned.

Yes, she writes about the season of winter. The structure of the book follows the movement of the season beginning with September’s coming of winter to the almost spring of March.

For example she writes, “Winter opens up time,” and then shares her reading habit during the winter months.

In the high summer, we want to be outside and active; in winter, we are called inside, and here we attend to all the detritus of the summer months, when we are too busy to take the necessary care. Winter is when I reorganize my bookshelves and read all the books I acquired in the previous year and failed to actually read. It is also the time when I reread beloved novels, for the pleasure of reacquainting myself with old friends. In summer, I want big splashy ideas and trashy page-turners, devoured while lounging in a garden chair or perching on one of the breakwaters on the beach. In winter I want concepts to chew over in a pool of lamplight–slow, spiritual reading, a reinforcement of the soul. Winter is a time for libraries, the muffled quiet of book stacks and the scent of old pages and dust. In winter, I can spend hours in silent pursuit of a half-understood concept or a detail of history. There is nowhere else to be, after all.

p. 210

Excuse me while I take a time-out to rearrange my bookshelves.

I’m back.

“Wintering also refers to the emotions of being in a winter season of our lives. May writes, “Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again.” (p. 10) and “We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.” (p. 13) She adds that some winters are big and some small.

This passage seems especially fitting when I think about the winter stage of my life, these elder years:

…you’ll find wisdom in your winter, and once it’s over, it’s your responsibility to pass it on. And, in return, it’s our responsibility to listen to those who have wintered before us. It’s an exchange of gifts in which nobody loses out. …Watching winter and really listening to its messages, we learn that effect is often disproportionate to cause; that tiny mistakes can lead to huge disasters; that life is often bloody unfair, but it carries on happening with or without our consent. We learn to look more kindly on other people’s crises, because they are so often portents of our own future.

pp. 122-123

I enjoyed the sections about wolves, wild swimming, saunas, the Sami people and reindeer, Santa Lucia, and the winter solstice. Winter is a rich season, indeed.

May is also author of Enchantment, Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age (2023) and The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman’s Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home (2018). Her podcast is How We Live Now and her newsletter is The Clearing. https://katherinemay.substack.com

An Invitation

How do you respond to the concept of “wintering”? I would love to know.

Always More to See

/ nagneberg48 / 8 Comments

February 14, 2023

The day was too glorious–warm, sunny, clear– to spend at my desk, checking off my list what had not yet been accomplished. Even though making those check marks nourishes my soul in a certain way, what I needed was nourishment I could feel radiate throughout my whole body. I needed to roam and am grateful my husband had a plan.

His plan was to drive up the Minnesota side of the St Croix River and then cross over the river into Wisconsin at Taylor’s Falls. We remembered a charming cafe near a waterfall in one of the small Wisconsin towns, but which one? That’s what makes roaming interesting–when you “kind of, sort of know,” but who knows what you’ll see or discover in the meantime.

We love this drive at anytime of the year, but during the summer and fall months, the route is crowded with others who have the same idea–enjoy the colors, explore the river, walk, hike, visit fun little shops, wineries, garden nurseries along the way. In the winter, however, the same route is quiet. The invitation is to savor.

I felt the lingering items on my list languish as I gazed across expanses of snow. From here to where? Remnants of harvested corn poked through the crusty snow, and smoke rose daintily out chimneys of solitary homes. I imagined the river views sweetening the life in those homes. A horse here and a small herd of cattle there, puffing steam through their nostrils. I know tending animals in the winter is a challenge, but for the moment it seemed like an idyllic way of life.

And the river–no boats, of course. No waterskiing, no parties of sun gods and goddesses reveling. Only stillness on the surface, leaving underwater life to our imaginations. This is the river’s own time, which does not have to be shared with others, it seems. I hoped our roaming didn’t interfere with the needed rest, the solitude of sanctuary.

We congratulated ourselves when we found the remembered cafe. Our lunch was delicious and our conversation the kind of catch-up we needed. On the way back to the car I stopped to take a picture of the falls. I suppose I should have recorded the sound of the rushing water, but, oh well, I didn’t. I just wanted a simple souvenir of the day, of the nourishment I was receiving.

What Do You See?

Only when I inserted that photo of the falls, which are barely visible, did I notice the real reason for the image.

Look at the tree in the foreground on the right.

The eye. The large, unblinking eye, looking right at me, and now, you.

In fact, I see the profile of a face—an arched eyebrow, nose and turned down mouth.

You may see something different in this image or you may derive a totally different meaning of the eye or none at all, but here’s what it means to me. There is always more to see. There is always more than meets the eye, especially at first glance. And in my seeing, I am seen.

We took a different route on our way home, one we had not driven before that led us gradually back home to our urban life. Back home to my lists, of course, but they could wait for another day.

An Invitation

What have you seen lately that has nourished you? I would love to know.

NOTE: The cafe we enjoyed was the Water Shed in Osceola, WI.

Winter Gifts

/ nagneberg48 / 8 Comments
Ice formations on top of an artesian aquifer near Maiden Rock, WI. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nelsons-on-rush-river

At a retreat I helped facilitate for women with breast cancer the opening activity was to declare our favorite season. The floor had been divided into four quadrants–winter, spring, summer, fall–and the women gathered in the segments. The winter space was almost as bare as tree branches in January with only 3 of the 50 participants asserting love of winter.

I was one of those three, and we three actually held hands and huddled together–and vowed to meet for hot chocolate on the coldest of winter days. Each person shared what they loved about their favorite season, and we winter people had similar feelings–the love of burrowing in, of being cozy and having more time to read and write, feeling there are fewer distractions. We expressed love for the quiet that darkness brings.

None of us talked abut loving outdoor sports, although I have such wonderful childhood memories about ice skating Friday nights and Sunday afternoons at the neighborhood rink. As as an adult I enjoyed cross-country skiing with our children and later, at Sweetwater Farm, snowshoeing on our land, noting where deer had bedded down for the night. But those activities are not the core of my love of winter.

The season allows and encourages me to access not only the deepest parts of myself, but also the barest, like those skeleton bare branches.

Winter is a time of clarification for me. I see across the landscape of my soul, unhindered by intense and varied colors and textures. Instead, there is the sweep of white, the unhidden contours of the land, the places where the earth meets the sky. I note the eagles soaring above the few places of open water, and my heart soars, too, and feels the bigness of possibility, of hope. I seek that open water, not because I yearn for the flow of water in spring and summer, but because of its uniqueness during this frozen time. It illuminates the edges, the hard places, and invites me into the deep.

I wonder sometimes if the winter season was not positioned at the end and the beginning of the year, would I feel differently about winter? How much of this intentional time to go deeper, to challenge myself is related to the reflection and evaluation as we end one year and move into another? How much is about turning the page of a new calendar, clearing the space, starting again? Hard to know, but I think I am glad the season and the new year are related.

Recently, my husband and I headed out of St Paul and drove down the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi; a drive we love no matter the time of day or year; no matter the weather. We followed the easy directions to see the ice formations we had heard about and were stunned by their magnificence and their fairy tale beauty. As we continued along our favorite route, able to see Lake Pepin’s shoreline through the bare trees and also homes on top of the bluffs normally hidden by thick foliage, but now revealed against the grey sky, we counted hawks and eagles. Six hawks and at least two dozen eagles, including four in the same tree. And swans, too, holding a convention in open water. Who would not love this, I thought.

Returning home, I felt renewed, restored, and ready for the ongoing work of this winter age of my life.

An Invitation: Sit with winter, the season, the stage of life, and allow it to speak to you. What does it say to you? I would love to know.

First Snow of the Season

/ nagneberg48 / 4 Comments

Late Saturday afternoon gentle snowflakes began to fall. No surprise, for the weather folks had been predicting this slide into more wintry weather. Soon the rooftop was covered, as well as the lawn, but the sidewalks remained clear. Just a hint of things to come.

I am ready.

My sweaters are folded neatly on the closet shelves. More than one chair has a shawl draped over it. I have everything I need to make chicken-mushroom-leek soup, and have stocked ingredients for hot chocolate, as well. The freezer is full of all the pesto I made this summer, and the pantry has several packages of spaghetti for simple and delicious, “touch of summer” winter meals.

My husband moved the patio furniture into the garage and has put the garden to bed. The furnace man comes tomorrow to make sure we will be cozy and warm all winter.

We don’t have a fireplace, unfortunately, but I can light a candle with a woodsy smell.

Of course, I have plenty of books to read. In fact, over the weekend I added to my piles when we visited a favorite bookstore where we met the shop dog, Nellie, and the new owner. Such good book talk we had. https://excelsiorbaybooks.indielite.org We even bought a couple Christmas presents. And speaking of Christmas I bought our Christmas cards recently and will soon write this year’s letter.

Yes, I have everything I need for cozy indoor days, and once more I thought to myself, “I love my life.” That feeling bubbles up in me so often, bringing me close to tears. I cross my hands over my heart in gratitude for all the blessings that fill my days, my life.

And all because of the first snowfall.

An Invitation: Are you ready -for the first snowfall or for whatever change is sure to come in your life? I would love to know.