Take Heed of Winter's Call

As November draws to a close I feel poised and ready, eager even, to enter the cold dark months of winter. I know many people dread the winter, finding the reduced hours of daylight and cold damp weather challenging, even depressing, and this is perfectly understandable, but I think a key reason people struggle is that we have forgotten what winter is for. As modern life increasingly disconnects us from nature, we no longer understand that the purpose of winter is to induce dormancy.

We don't have time for dormancy these days, we expect ourselves and others to be switched on and functioning at full capacity all year round. But if we continue relentlessly in this mode, never fully balancing the activity and rushing with rest and downtime, something will eventually give and we will be made to stop.

Even though I have long understood the need for periods of slowness to counteract the effects of a fast-paced lifestyle, I have really only accepted this in theory. I allowed my mind to process the thoughts and take on board the beliefs, but I didn’t allow the information to seep right down into my body and psyche so that it could undergo the transformation from knowledge to knowing which takes place in the heart. I preached about it, gave others instructions to slow down and rest, but I hardly ever did it myself, not really.

It is ironic how as a holistic practitioner, I continued for decades not heeding my own advice, but a deeply ingrained need to ‘do, do, do’ fed by long-term insecurities was blinding and deafening me to a truth, now so obvious. How could I have ignored the call of my blood, so often low in iron however careful I was with my nutrition? Blood is a physical representation of our life force, the iron it contains symbolising strength, yet despite my blood being iron-depleted regularly, I carried on, not listening, not getting it. How could I have ignored the call of my hormones, often displaying a dominance of oestrogen in relation to progesterone despite me using many different methods to try to restore balance? Oestrogen dominance, common in our western societies, speaks of an unhealthy need to push on, produce and achieve as oestrogen, the more masculine-inspired of the two major female hormones, relates to ‘doing’ compared with the gentle feminine ‘being’ energy of progesterone. How could I not have listened to the signs that I would have so easily recognised in others?

We live in times when the calls to change are coming louder and stronger than ever before. This is causing a lot of distress as we are being forced to wake up and face what we have long tried to ignore. Such powerful wake up calls are happening on both a personal and collective level, perhaps you are one of those experiencing fierce challenge right now.

My body recently took a stand, ramping up the volume of its cries in order to shake me out of my slumber. An issue with fibroids that I had also half-ignored for 18 months, took a turn for the worst, and after significant blood loss, I ended up in A&E with a consultant firmly telling me I was heading for a ‘catastrophic event’ if I didn’t accept an immediate blood transfusion. The following days spent lying in hospital gave me the time and space I had been refusing to give myself for so long, and finally the message that work is not a means to acceptance and it is ok to stop sometimes, began to sink in. This is a journey I am still on as old ingrained habits require effort to change, but one thing I know is that this year I will fully embrace winter’s call for dormancy gifting myself stillness and quiet to retreat within for contemplation and processing.

Many of us spend the winter craving the newness of spring, we want to skip over the bleak season when much in nature appears to be dead. But lots is happening below the surface of awareness at this time, the energies are shifting, realigning themselves, deep within the earth and deep within our unconscious. That which is old and beyond its usefulness is breaking down, lessons from the past are being absorbed so that eventually they will be transformed into something new. Darkness, stillness and quiet are required for this alchemical process and so however uncomfortable, we must fully engage with this natural cycle of life, fully integrating the old as only then can we bring to fruition the new life waiting to emerge.

Observing the present state of the world it seems there are many catastrophic events just waiting to happen. We are being summoned to pay attention like never before. And yet, most of us continue to function in the same switched on survival mode, racing forward blindly, exhausting our nervous systems along the way. We rarely stop; we rarely take notice. Something soon will have to give, however, it will have to, and so I implore you to take heed and listen to the call of winter. It is asking you to slow down, it is asking you rest, it is asking you to go within and contemplate. Soon the days will grow longer again and the energies will shift so don’t miss this opportunity - go inwards, go deep and see what you discover.