If I had One Word for Winter

Happy New Year Dear One.

I hope that this turning of the corner from Autumn to Winter has been slow and easeful for you. (It’s important to decelerate when we turn corners, yes?).

Today I want to remind you to be with the sweet slowness of the season. I know there’s a lot of pressure externally to kick off January with a bang, and to get moving on projects, diets, workout regimens, etc.

But let's be gentle with ourselves as we’re still in the deep Winter. We’ve actually just begun our progression through this season.

January is still very much at the bottom of the wheel of the year, sisters with December.

Even though we’ve passed through the Winter Solstice portal, we’re still very much in the realm of the darkness (see image below).

Winter is a season of dreaming, represented by the poppy seed pods, above.

This means that it's super supportive for dreaming up the year ahead, planting your seeds of intention, and deeply listening to what wants to come through your sacred vessel. This is a season of contemplation. A season of expanding into your spiritual self.

It is a time of stillness, dreamy mists, and nourishment. A time of receptivity. A time of listening.

Listening to the land.

Listening to your body.

Listening to the quiet night.

Listening to what the earth may be asking to receive.

Listening to what you may be needing to receive.

But if I had to choose one word for Winter, I'd say "receptive."

In Chinese Medicine, Winter is known as the most "yin" of all the seasons. The most inward, receptive, dark, contemplative, feminine, and curious.

We've emptied out over the Autumn months. We've let ourselves rest and lay fallow. And now, we begin to take in again. We begin our long inhale from Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice.

How receptive can you become this season?

In my ​Sacred Seasons Winter Guidebook​ I write about the element of Earth as the exalted element of Winter. And how Winter is the season where we solidify our containers, build our structures, and then begin to receive within them.

We fill up our cups. We nourish our bones. We grow our potential energy so that we have enough to offer in the Spring.

So my dear, be gentle with yourself this turn of the year.

Remember to listen. Remember to nourish. Remember to receive yourself, and re-member yourself back into integrated wholeness.