Wintering
Listening to the Stillness of the World
Winter arrives as an ancient storyteller, speaking in tongues of frost and shadow, asking us to unlearn the relentless pace of summer’s urgency. In the animist tradition, winter is not an empty season but a being with breath, spirit, and voice. It carries wisdom we often miss, mistaking quiet for absence, slowness for stagnation. Yet winter hums with the deep, ancestral rhythms of rest and renewal.
The bare trees do not mourn their leaves; they know this shedding is necessary for survival. The soil beneath the frost is not dead; it dreams, conserving its energy for the explosion of life to come. Winter teaches us that retreat is not failure, but a vital part of the cycle. It is a season that demands presence—a fierce listening to what remains when the noise falls away.
As humans in an extractive culture, we are trained to fear the pause, to see stillness as unproductive. But animism reminds us that every part of the living world winters. Rivers slow to a crawl. Birds disappear into dense woods. Even the sun, in its low arc, asks us to soften our gaze. Wintering is not an aberration but an invitation to step into sync with the larger pulse of the earth, to rest in the deep, necessary quiet of becoming.
When we winter well, we allow the roots of our lives to thicken. We learn to hear the inaudible—the songs of stones, the whispered wisdom of the wind. We honor the ways stillness transforms us. This is not a retreat from life but a return to its essence, to the rich, fertile dark from which all things are born.
For those who feel called to deepen their relationship with winter, to embrace the sacred rhythms of rest and renewal, I offer three experiences that weave together the philosophy of animism, the power of stillness, and the promise of transformation:
The Twilight Lodge Experience
This day-long immersion is an invitation to gather at the liminal edges of the season, where dusk meets night and the world softens into mystery. Here, we will explore the art of pausing and listening. Through myth, ritual, and experiential practices, you will meet the shadows within and without, finding the sacred wisdom in the in-between spaces to release and renew in the balance.
Stillness: A Seasonal Sanctuary
Stillness is a sanctuary, a place where the frenzy of doing gives way to the richness of being. In this course, you will learn to align with the rhythm of the earth’s wintering, deepening your connection to the world around you. Through guided practices and animist philosophy, we will explore how stillness can become a source of strength, clarity, and renewal.
These offerings are invitations to honor winter as a sacred teacher—a reminder that rest is not a luxury but a necessity and that in the quiet, we meet the whispers of what we are becoming.
Ongoing Monthly Circles
Ancestral Lineage Healing Circle:
November 24th, 2025 from 3 pm-4:30 pm EST
Winter is a time for turning inward, not only to our own lives but also to the lives of those who came before us. The Ancestral Lineage Healing Circle invites you to connect with your roots, to honor and heal the relationships that stretch across time. Through guided rituals, storytelling, and community, we will work to mend the threads of our ancestral tapestry, finding resilience and wisdom in the process.
New Moon in Sagittarius Ritual Salon: A Flame in the Dark
December 1st, 2024 3 pm-4:30 pm EST
For Paid subscribers, Please join me in our online community Ritual. This month we will explore the threshold of Winter through the eyes of Sagittarius. (The link to the call will arrive the day before the event in a separate note just for you!)
The New Moon is always a womb, a space of possibility where the world exhales, leaving us in the hush before creation. This month, the moon slips into the fiery arms of Sagittarius, and what emerges is not just a spark, but a wild, untamed flame—a torch held high in the dark of the season.
In animism, the stars are alive, their constellations storytellers weaving myth and meaning across the night sky. Sagittarius is no exception. The archer’s bow stretches taut, its arrow pointed toward distant horizons. This is a moon of quests and questions, of sacred restlessness. It hums with the energy of expansion, whispering that even in the dormancy of winter, we are allowed to dream, to wander, and to seek.
The New Moon in Sagittarius asks: What calls to you from beyond the edges of what you know? This is a lunation of bold visioning, of leaning into possibility. But it is not reckless. Sagittarius carries the wisdom of fire—controlled, purposeful, a beacon to guide rather than to consume. The animist world reminds us that fire belongs to the hearth as much as the wild. It is a companion, a teacher, and a transformative force.
Beneath this New Moon, we are invited to root our dreaming in meaning. Sagittarius does not wander aimlessly. The archer’s arrow is aimed at the heart of truth, carried by winds of wisdom. This is a time to look inward and ask: What is my true north? What inner compass can guide me through the darkness of winter?
ON MY TONGUE
The Womb of Winter
The earth, not forgetting her roots,
even as frost stiffens her breath,
curls her body inward,
a fist of loam gripping
the secret pulse of spring.
The season of remembering—
not as light,
but as weight.
A stone presses into the belly of the river,
and the current leans around it,
whispering prayers to the deep.
Trees bare their bones,
not in grief,
but in surrender.
Nakedness is not shame
it is wisdom,
an offering to the cold
that insists on truth.
Beneath the snow,
mushrooms weave quiet hymns,
their mycelial tongues stitching
what is broken,
what is forgotten,
what still dreams of wholeness.
Winter does not ask for haste.
It asks for stillness.
For the courage to sit in the hollow
and listen
to the stories frost etches
on the window’s edge.
This is the time of the unsaid,
of learning the language
of what breathes without sound.
The sky kneels low to the earth,
and the stars turn their faces away—
not in abandonment,
but in invitation.
To winter is to enter the womb again,
to live with the knowing
that all things grow
in the dark.
~ The Honeyed Oracle
IN MY EARS
Harold Budd… Everything
Here’s a start
As is revealed, there are a host of ways to connect coming up, Please join me in this sacred pause. Let us winter together.
A Note of Change…
There is always a balance of when to send notices of upcoming offerings, and when to just simply send liminal imaginings to fellow travelers of the unknown spaces. A few years ago, I canceled my newsletter on another platform and migrated everything here. Alas, progress moves the needle. I will still have most of my writing here, and the good news is, that you’ll hear from me more often. Also, you’ll be receiving a separate email for notices of upcoming offerings directly from my website. It became a necessary feature so that I can drip emails to course participants as they are navigating my courses. Please do not worry, those will only go out once a month. I’m not one to spam inboxes. If you do not wish to get those, please unsubscribe when that hits your inbox.