Reconnecting With Our Intuition
Longing for snow + how to use the darkness properly
This warm December has been sort of an odd feeling. I feel old saying this, but I remember being six and the final weeks of the year before Christmas Break, walking to school on sidewalks walled by snow taller than me. I would have to stop at each driveway on my way to school and peak around the drifts for cars. I have a lot of feelings right now about those days as I sit here with my son that same age as I was begging us to go skiing, yet it isn’t even cold enough for the ski hills to make much or any snow.
The lack of snow and cold (it was 50 yesterday and 60 degrees in our school hoop house when I was teaching on Friday) has made me even more highly aware of the drabness of this season as the landscape suspends in this space that feels like endless November. Things are faded and decaying into the earth. The colors are subtle amongst the landscape, and my skis aren’t as used as I would like to say they are. Even now, I see the chickens working the soil in the garden that has become unfrozen. The ground is warm enough that things are sprouting again, and my herbs are still giving. It’s confusing, to say the least.
So many people seem okay with this mild December, but outside of my usual feelings of climate concern and grief and finding the bonus of having extra time to get a few outdoor things done, I find these mild winters darker than the snowy ones. I think the landscape’s dull tones have their peak of beauty in November when we await the snowfalls’ cover and then another moment when everything melts, and the earth feels it is coming back to life. In those moments, the landscape speaks of the importance of liminal space, but at some point, when the snow doesn’t settle in, it can feel like being a pregnant woman too far past her due date. There is a longing for what you know should be happening but hasn’t yet.
The space between the beginning and end is always like this, though, isn’t it? It can leave us suspended in a what should we be doing? Something about the settling in of the snow, which feels like it really hasn’t done in a few years during these cold months the way it should. Instead, it comes in a big wave and then leaves shortly after. I miss the depths of winter that can unfold when it drops below 0 for days on end. I miss the freezing temps, but most of all, I miss the requirement to dig into myself and connect more with my inner intuition.
For a gardener or anyone who works with the soil, a calm comes when we no longer can see the soil. It is like sinking under the covers in our bed. We know the work is done for a bit, and we can finally dream and rest. Yet, here I am, seeing green rising, and my mind wanders into tree plantings, the development of natural water systems, soil structure, and more. What I long for instead is for the landscape to be covered and smoothed by a blanket of white. Forcing the necessary degradation of the straw and leaves so my work is easier in the spring when the soil dries out and is ready to be worked.
Longing to see the work that belongs to April and May hidden is one thing, but my friends, it is also about shifting the thoughts and feelings in my head. When the snow comes in and stays, the forest becomes a playground in a new way. The muddy and sandy roads that lead to our home become solid and snowy so that I can glide wonderfully on my skis, or I can cut my own lines in the fresh snow and just glide where I want to. I can hear the silence of the forest. I can track the deer. I can be reminded of the movement that happens under the guise of the dark sky above me that allows me deep sleep. But also, the snow brings brightness even amongst these darker and cloudier days of the year. It, in some way, protects us from the death and decay that is happening all around us so we can live in a state of creativity and conjuring new perspectives of self.
I find the snow to be the thing that makes winter the gift it is. The snow brightens the landscape. It gives us a new view even when the days are short. When the sun shines on a snowy landscape, there isn’t a full sun day in summer that could ever compare. It also makes our nights brighter when the full moon comes in and shines upon the snowy hills. It allows us to feel things in new ways, and it acts as a blank canvas for our minds, bodies, and souls to dream and heal the parts of us that don’t get our attention in the abundance of summer.
So I am over here, wishing for one thing and only one for this holiday season: to feel the settling in of the snow, and it may be a lost hope this year. I still hope to be able to connect with myself amongst the snowy landscape all winter so I can become sick of it, so much so that I am begging for my shovel in the spring. I want the snow to offer me the pathless trails I long for in these months. I want to feel the silence of just me and the chickadees who hide in the snow-laden pine boughs. I want to soak in the silence that never happens in the roar of the ecosystem in summer.
Until then, I will wander in the fading leaves and visit all the trees I know feel the same. I will embrace the darkness of the afternoons and mornings with fires and candles and Christmas tree lights. Using them to keep me company in the dark and to find space to connect with myself. Letting the darkness be like the snow I dream of; guiding me into reconnecting with the still and quiet depths of myself.
I didn’t have a chance to record a podcast this week - hello holiday season! So if you didn’t catch it last week’s was a solid one about cooking and alliums. I really loved it.
12/15 Reflection- Trusting the Dark
I hear her little voice in the middle of the night, “Mama!” I could hear it in the deepest state of sleep. It’s the superpower of being a mother. A rewiring that happened the moment I knew she was with me. It’s her middle-of-the-night ritual that these days feels less and less common, yet my heightened awareness of her call is still the thing my ear can hear sharper than anything. After all, mama was her first word, so I know how she pronounces every single letter.
I head to her room and find she simply wants to join me in my room. I always oblige it because someday she will move away from me. Some part of me will leave with her, and when she calls in the middle of the night, it may be on a phone call rather than from just down the hall. I will be there either way because she is “my girl,” as I always remind her.
I gather her unicorn stuffies and the blankets she loves, the things she may love even more than me. As we walked the hall, the moon was behind the clouds, so even with all the windows upstairs, it was dark. My daughter holds my hand and says, “Mama, it’s too dark.” so I turn and say, “I know the way even without the light, and so do you. Follow me.”
Holding her little hand in the dark, my eyes open, but with just some places darker than others, I did know the way. I found myself trusting the way that this route in our house is like a map written in my soul. She trusted me in trusting my intuition. We sure enough found our way to our beds. She settles in next to me with all of her unicorns and all.
I lay there listening to her fall asleep a little deeper with each breath, and I realized how much of a gift the dark can be to remind us we know the way better than we believe we do. I realized more often than not that my intuition, even when the path is unclear, has a sense of where to go next. I know what is right and what should hold restraint as well. I know when something isn’t working and when something is. It’s all there. Sometimes, it is just about removing the rest of the details so we can listen closer to ourselves.
As much as the darkness can feel scary at times. I was reminded in the darkness of the new moon that the darkness can remind us that we already know the way, and we may be less at a loss or without direction than we may think.
How to Celebrate Winter Solstice
If you are looking for some ideas for rituals and things to implement to celebrate Winter Solstice, here are a few fun things you can do with other adults. Winter Solstice has many religious and pagan layers to it that I find absolutely fascinating. I highly suggest researching it and taking the time to read more. I dig a little more every year as we approach the season.
Adult Winter Solstice Activities:
Bonfire evening with other adults to have dinner around a fire and to burn the past together in whatever way feels right. I suggest everyone write a list of things that they are ready to let go of and then individually/collectively burn them.
Make a yule log cake and serve it with hot wassail spiked or not
Build a spiral maze to wander and meditate through with a lantern
Make a meal of warm food that celebrates the gifts from the year.
Take time to be with nature. Observe the shifting of the light. Be there for the sunrise and the sunset of the day.
Please share any other meaningful things you do for Winter Solstice and Yule celebrations below.
What I Have Been Doing This Week
I decided to switch this area up. I am currently taking a longer hiatus from Instagram, and I realized there are things I am doing that could live here for you all if you are curious. So, I am dropping the Top of Mind section in exchange for some looks into life this week for me. Think of it like what I would have put in my stories on Instagram, but I personally like this more.
Images described left to right and top row to bottom:
The garden class has slowed down this week, and the kids have been wanting to craft, so this week, we listened to music (they took control of my Spotify) and made air clay ornaments with seeds and beans.
This mild December has left us with October/November weather, which means rainbows but in the north of the land.
Waxed up my skis with my dad. It was my first time doing it myself, and a total blast.
I even got a day out on the slopes with one day this last weekend. It was actually cold enough. The runs were good, but only a few were open.
We did our annual lantern walk at school to welcome the return to the light, and we had this gorgeous sunset over the lake by the firepit we gathered around.
Site visit for an upcoming Edible Landscape / Culinary Garden Project. More on this over the coming year or so. It’s a big project but one I am excited to see come to life in the next 3-5 years.
Friday, after I attended a viewing of a conference for some education stuff I am doing, I had the lovely experience of going on a long walk on the school grounds with the previous Science/Garden teacher, and my gosh, what a beautiful and amazing moment.
Mike’s mom was in town from Texas, so we spent the weekend with my family to enjoy some holiday cheer. It was really awesome.
Drawings I find all over the house by the eldest. They are so intricate. He works on them constantly. It brings me a lot of joy to see how his mind creates.
This week, I also shared these posts for subscribers:
How to Pay Attention This Week - The moon’s phases are the best to observe this time of year.
Shining Into the Dark - I want to be like the trees -- doing the work of winter in my roots so I can rise to the light despite the darkness.
The Constant Companion of Alliums - Last week’s free newsletter
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I'm in Wisconsin and while it's been a gift not to have to drive in bad weather, I've also found the warm weather to be disorienting. The warmer days seem to come with less sunshine and things are grayer without light bouncing off snow. I'm trying to reframe it and enjoy the opportunity to get outside without so many layers but it is strange.
I went on a Pilgrimage to Maui Dec 1-5th at the "beginning" of winter here in MI and then coming back to such mild weather...I feel this sadness and longing for snow in my bones. I've never had tears swell over the desire for snow and yet, I do this year. Maybe it's the extra contrast of just being in my swimsuit, swimming in ocean and river, that stirs this. Maybe it's the missing home and remembering those U.P. Winters that never cross the bridge down here. Maybe I'm more in my body this year than I've ever been and it wants to milk the season for all it can. Silence. Solitude. Surrender.
Either way, your writing is such a blessing to read this afternoon. I have many farmer friends and it gave me perspective to that which I cannot personally understand. I live in an apartment, no farm yet, no hands deep in dirt building gardens and alters to earth. Our food comes from a farm called Angel Acres, we visit bi-weekly and now I have to wonder how much no snow is stressing the environment in the case of regenerative farming.
I love the pictures section as if they were instagram stories. The last picture is so heart warming 🤍