Wintering: December 3 - 9

Isn’t it ironic we spend the days of December frantically shopping for gifts and attending holiday parties exactly when our bodies hunger for a bit more sleep and our souls long for stillness?

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”

from Wintering

by Katherine May

katherine-may.co.uk

Practice

Let’s follow the promptings of nature, light a candle, and seek out some time for quiet contemplation.

The psalmist writes, “Be still and know that I am God.” Sit in silence with these words. Wrap them around you like a blanket. Pause for a moment or two between each phrase.

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.