Wintering
Dear friend,
I keep returning to Katherine May’s words from her book Wintering: “I learned winter young.” There’s recognition in that phrase, a gentle naming of what I’ve always felt but couldn’t articulate. The pull toward stillness when the world insists on motion; the urge to retreat when everything demands engagement.
This season of cocooning is, I’m discovering, a sacred necessity. In the fragile stretches of my life, I often mistook my need to withdraw for weakness, something to overcome. Now, I understand this wintering as a ritual—an inward journey that my soul requires.
I’m learning that venturing into shadowed, uncertain places within is an act of courage. Sitting with discomfort and trusting quiet moments is how truth slowly finds us. In excavating the tender spaces longing for care, I notice: real work, real healing happens here.
There’s a profound shift when winter is seen not as absence, but as an abiding presence. In the cocoon, old patterns dissolve. New ways of being take root. The darkness is not empty—it’s fertile, creative, gestational.
Nature never apologizes for its seasons. Trees stand bare, unashamed. The earth rests, guiltless. Yet, I’ve long fought my own cycles, exhausting myself in pursuit of perpetual summer.
These days, I’m practicing something new. When the call to retreat comes, I listen. When the world feels too bright or too much, I honor the instinct to wrap myself in quiet. I light candles, rest with nidra, cook slowly, listen to meditative music, and write—again and again. I permit myself to rest, to not know, to simply be in process, to winter.
What I’m discovering in these cocooned spaces isn’t emptiness, but a strange fullness. Not isolation, but deep familiarity, a meeting with parts of myself patiently waiting in the shadows. This is where belonging arises.
To remember who we are beneath the noise, we have to go inside.
Katherine May calls wintering a “healing power drawn from the natural world.” I feel that healing not as something sudden, but as slow, essential recalibration—a returning to center, to what matters most.
Now I see: my winters aren’t detours from life. They’re essential chapters, written in quiet ink, meant to be read slowly. The darkness holds its own intelligence. The retreat knows its own purpose. The cocoon unfolds on its own timeline. Honoring these inner seasons isn’t giving up—it’s surrendering to a wisdom deeper and older than the impulse to perpetually produce and perform.
Winter arrives, welcome or not. I choose to welcome it, trust its quiet work. In the stillness, something new is always preparing to emerge.
Love, so much love,
Sarah
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” —Albert Camus
