41
" Even as the leaves are falling, the buds of next year’s crop are already in place, waiting to erupt again in spring. Most trees produce their buds in high summer, and the autumn leaf fall reveals them, neat and expectant, protected from the cold by thick scales. We rarely notice them because we think we’re seeing the skeleton of the tree, a dead thing until the sun returns./
The tree is waiting. It has everything ready. It’s fallen leaves are mulching the forest floor, and its roots are drawing up the extra winter moisture, providing a firm anchor against seasonal storms. Its ripe cones and nuts are providing essential food in this scarce time for mice and squirrels, and its bark is hosting hibernating insects and providing a source of nourishment for hungry deer. It is far from dead. It is in fact the life and soul of the wood. It’s just getting on with it quietly. It will not burst into life in the spring. It will just put on a new coat and face the world again. "
― Katherine May , Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
45
" In At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, the historian A. Roger Ekirch asserts that before the Industrial Revolution, it was normal to divide the night into two periods of sleep: the “first sleep”, or “dead sleep”, lasting from the evening until the early hours of the morning; and the “second” or “morning” sleep, which took the slumber safely to daybreak. In between, there was an hour or more of wakefulness known as the “watch”, in which “Families rose to urinate, smoke tobacco, and even visit close neighbors. Many others made love, prayed, and ... reflected on their dreams, a significant source of solace and self-awareness.” In the intimacy of the darkness, families and lovers could hold deep, rich, wandering conversations that had no place in the busy daytime.
This was a function of the times in which the night really was dark, when the poor would go to sleep early to save the price of candles, and even the rich would have the choice of struggling on with their occupation in limited light or surrendering to sleep. Outside the house, the streets were usually unlit, so the only navigable space was home.
This was so ordinary, and perhaps also so private moment in the day, that little was written about it. Ekirch picks up a range of passing references to the first and second sleeps in diaries, letters, and literature, but this ancient practice is nearly invisible to the contemporary eye. "
― Katherine May , Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
46
" There is not enough night left for us. We have lost our true instincts for darkness, it’s invitation to spend some time in the proximity of our dreams. Our personal winters are so often accompanied by insomnia: perhaps we’re drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence, without really knowing what we’re seeking. Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort.
Sleep is not a dead space, but a doorway to a different kind of consciousness – one that is reflective and restorative, full of tangential thought and unexpected insights. In winter, we are invited into a particular mode of sleep: not a regimented eight hours, but a slow ambulatory process in which waking thoughts merge with dreams, and space is made in the blackest hours to repair the fragmented narratives of our days.
Yet we are pushing away this innate skill we have for digesting the difficult parts of life. "
― Katherine May , Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
52
" Here is another truth about wintering: you’ll find wisdom in your winter, and once it’s over, it’s your responsibility to pass it on. And in return, it’s our responsibility to listen to those who have wintered before us. It’s an exchange of gifts in which nobody loses out. This may involve the breaking of a lifelong habit, one passed down carefully through generations: that of looking at other people’s misfortunes and feeling certain that they brought them upon themselves in a way that you never would. This isn’t just an unkind attitude. It does us harm, because it keeps us from learning that disasters do indeed happen and how we can adapt when they do. It stops us from reaching out to those who are suffering. And when our own disaster comes, it forces us into a humiliated retreat, as we try to hunt down mistakes that we never made in the first place or wrongheaded attitudes that we never held. Either that, or we become certain that there must be someone out there we can blame. Watching winter and really listening to its messages, we learn that effect is often disproportionate to cause; that tiny mistakes can lead to huge disasters; that life is often bloody unfair, but it carries on happening with or without our consent. We learn to look more kindly on other people’s crises, because they are so often portents of our own future. "
― Katherine May , Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
53
" Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness or a life event such as a bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. Some wintering creep upon us more slowly, accompanying the protracted death of a relationship, the gradual ratcheting up of caring responsibilities as our parents age, the drip-drip-drip of lost confidence. Some are appallingly sudden, like discovering one day that your skills are considered obsolete, the company you worked for has gone bankrupt, or your partner is in love with someone new. However, it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. "
― Katherine May , Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
