In so many stories and fables that shape us, cold and snow, the closing in of the light — these have deep psychological, as much as physical, reality. This is “wintering,” as the English writer Katherine May illuminates in her beautiful, meditative book of that title — at once a season of the natural world, a respite our bodies require, and a state of mind. Krista first spoke with Katherine in midwinter 2020, and their conversation continues to offer a helpful container for our pandemic time: as one vast, extended, communal experience of wintering. As 2021 draws to a close — still with so much to metabolize and to carry, with an aching need for replenishment — Katherine May opens up exactly what so many have needed to hear, but haven’t known how to name.  

On Being

Listen to “How ‘Wintering’ Replenishes The Soul”

I first listened to this podcast early in the Covid pandemic. I was walking along Biscayne Bay near our home, at the time, in Miami. Perhaps the farthest place from winter you can imagine. The sun was shining brightly, and I heard Katherine May say, “Some winters happen in the sun.” We could winter in the sun. That made more sense than I can explain. The sun was shining, but I felt winter. I felt scared and angry. I felt anxious and sad. I felt overwhelmed and lonely. Most of all I felt tired. The kind of tired I had not experienced since the final year of my Ph.D. studies or mile 20 of a marathon. All of it existed inside me on the most glorious of sunny days. I walked and wept. I walked and wept. I walked and wept.

I was wintering in the sun. In many ways, I am still wintering.

I gave myself permission to feel it all. I gave myself permission to take care of myself. I gave myself permission to not be ok. May writes about life happening in cycles, and that wintering is an essential, natural part of the life cycle. Pema Chodron writes about life falling apart and back together. That feels similar to the cylces of wintering May describes. There is no timeline on wintering. It happens when it happens. The beginning and ends flow.

May also describes, “There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open you, and you fall through them into Somewhere Else. And Somewhere Else — which is now capitalized — Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on.” We live in a world where we are all just moving between wintering and carrying on. Everyone is simply wintering and carrying on. Through deep dark times. Through joy. Through it all. I find comfort in the idea that we are all wintering and carrying on together. There is beautiful communion there. Winter looks and feels different for each of us. If we hold each other close as we winter spring comes.