Thank you for recommending this book. I finished reading it yesterday. It was great to learn how to winter when wintering. It's also an affirmation to know that what I'm experiencing this winter is actually part of life and living ie. "normal."
Time to add another book to my list! That passage grabbed me in the first few sentences.
I think I've wintered several times, the two that were the toughest were after the loss of my first baby and then, years later, the loss of my mother.
During that first wintering, I did not want to engage with the world. I wrote in my journal, I wrote grief-laden poems, and I just didn't care about anything. I left my home on very few occasions. I just needed to burrow into my little cocoon to sit in my grief and figure a way out.
Years later, after losing my mother, I fell into another wintering. We used to spend so much time together--she loved her grandchildren. We shopped, went to the park, took day trips together. We knew her time was limited. She was sick, very sick. After her death, the shopping trips felt empty, the trips to the playground felt lonely. Things we did so often together no longer mattered to me. I hunkered down at home with the kids, and we shared memories of their mémère, my dear, sweet mother.
It was also the same time that a long-time friendship ended for me. This person stood me up the weekend after my mom passed away. My mom had taken her in when she had nowhere to live, and when that happened, that weekend became the end of a relationship that had me falling more deeply into my wintering. I felt betrayed, and she was one of the very few friends I had. That was a rough time, but I'm so glad I had my three wonderful children, who lifted my spirits and gave me a reason to crawl out of that wintering phase of my life.
Now, I think I've entered another season of wintering. As a caregiver to my three adult children, I find myself wrestling with the fact that my remaining years on this planet are not going as I had hoped and planned they would. I feel grief sometimes that I can't follow the dreams I had for my later years in life. It's been a slow crawl into this season of wintering again, and I'm finding it hard to imagine when (and if) it will end.
I was very move by this letter, words touching my heart tears longing to feel internal spring
bloom again, wintering hues of life's reflection bring depth to present
richer than before, shackles drew depth to beauty I never seen before...
You know this pain it always going to be apart us in some way but if we allow ourselves to
open are hearts to it we can find the wisdom the" water within the tears" that grows life anew again, it's not that the pain of yesterday's goes away, it just through a heart's opening were allowing ourselves to find the teachings to move forward with it, creating meaning, beauty depths, life anew... May we all find Healing!
I love the excerpt and will order her book right now. I am prone to these winterings. Fell into one as the days shortened and the nights grew forever long. And yes, I feel alone & plenty ashamed that I still struggle at this age. I started d3+k2 several days ago and am noticing a nice improvement. Am also on a month long winter sabbatical with my husband and dog, campervaning cross-country. Feels so good to be in nature. Told my husband on this trip we’re only doing what feels nourishing to our soul. He’s game. So sweet. And Zorro, my dog, has the sweetest eyes ever and loves zoomies in the snow. This is our time for rest & restoration. Thank you so much for your gentle postings.
I read "Wintering" in 2022, at the start of my own wintering period. I had been in survival mode for three full years and needed to retreat from the world. And so I did. I don't recall how I came across "Wintering." I think possibly from an email I received from my local bookstore. But when I did, it hit me...the resonance and knowing...that this was a book I needed to read. It was comforting to hear someone else's voice so eloquently assure me that what I needed and what I was in fact doing for myself was natural, inevitable, and human. That I wasn't alone, that "this too shall pass." And as my own inner voice had told me but I was struggling to believe...that I would even be better off for it. I had a long, non-linear wintering (as probably many others have experienced). I came out when I felt a burst of energy, retreated again when it was too much or some new challenge knocked me down. Again, and again, repeat, etc. Until finally I felt like a wiser, more resilient, better version of my former self. I agree with Katherine...Wintering is hard but neccessary. What I have found with my past wintering (and a couple others that were also formative bur shorter in length) is that when it's over, I feel liberated. In the wintering, I shed what I need to in order to move forward. And it feels really amazing, hard-earned, and joyous to want to live fully again. Thank you for your book, Katherine. I really loved it.
I read Wintering when it was published, during a time of my own deep and painful wintering. I had just been diagnosed with cancer and was frantically seeking comfort, and discovering that I could no longer find comfort in the usual places. This book and a few others—your Bittersweet among them, Susan—gave me the kind of comfort I was seeking. Eternally grateful.
Thank you so much for this post. I am writing this through tears of emotional release because Katherine’s short excerpt touched on exactly what I’ve been unable to articulate or understand over the last year. My self imposed isolation, slow moving, deep thoughts, of try to figure out, not exactly what was ‘wrong’ with me, but that feeling of ‘not done’ but what’s next? And, impatience as a Capricorn at finding that next and “getting on with it”. Almost 65, widowed, no kids and buried in my work to keep from Wintering, I believe I will try to breathe, and pick up a book that may give me more to think about what I’m going through. Thank you so much.
Hi Donna. Just want to tell you I see you and hear you. I’m 61 and in a self-imposed isolation (aside from work) as well. I’m going about my day and being socially kind, but I’m psychologically hibernating and nesting in my quiet home. I have found it to be beautiful and needed. Peace to you.
Thank you for this post. Wintering, Bittersweet, and Quiet are three books that have profoundly changed my life - how I experience the world, my feelings, how I approach life; it is wonderful to see you both briefly on the same platform. I am reading Wintering currently for the second time. The passage above is so beautifully written and so acutely aligned to the human experience. Thank you again.
I bought “Wintering” in the fall of 24, but it’s still sitting in my pile of books. The excerpt has convinced me that it’s just what I need right about now.
Wintering was an important and loved book for me. This Goodreads highlight I saved speaks deeply to me - A desire to find life in the world around me, the trees and stones and bodies of water, the birds and mammals that enter my line of sight. Mine is a personal animism, hushed by my conscious brain, nurtured by my unconscious.
Have not read Katherine May's work before. But as soon as I finished reading this excerpt I ordered the book. WOW!!! I am so looking forward to reading her work. We all have a story. I feel there is power in words that connect our stories.
Yes. I have had a season of wintering affect me in a significant way. Yes, this excerpt did shine a light. It reminded me there are so many of life's experiences that do change who we are, and where we were going. But we do have time if we get help to find who we were, and where we want to be.
I believe I will really enjoy Katherine's book. Thank you Susan for highlighting Katherine May's work.
More than poetic and metaphoric, wintering is substantive and even subversive in our tough-minded culture. It names a less-named human experience. It normalizes and humanizes a wholesome gift to oneself. It listens beneath the surface, tending to deeper whispers of the body and spirit, and gives generous permission for "me time" or an extended "mental health day." It is a finely attuned form of emotional self-regulation when caught in the middle of demanding challenges. To trust one's intuition is to surrender the default mode of powering through the dark days, while honoring the heart's wisdom and self-compassion. Wintering is an act of active retreat, and a treat to the body and soul, too, moving into the slower lane of life, entering a laying-low rhythm, and letting winter run its full course. Then comes the season of unwintering as the world bids me to come. Rejuvenated and refreshed, I will follow the call, having encountered my inner capacity for resilience and vulnerability.
I love the idea of wintering. I also love the painting by Kaoru Yamada of the coffee shop. It is untitled, and I wasn't able to find it when I searched Yamada's gorgeous works that I was linked to. Any idea where one could find this beautiful print?
I was a bit non-plussed when I found that this artist uses AI to create their art. Ugh. Doesn't seem authentic to me. Who knows...maybe they are not even a real person?
I appreciate readings like this because it validates my instinct that there are going to be times when I have to rest, take stock, reassess, and try something different. I find myself using the word “setback” and I recognize that doesn’t feel good nor is it helpful. I like wintering instead.
I do believe 2025 has been forcing me to winter, through repeated illness, exhaustion, and creative doldrums that I kept refusing to acknowledge. My tarot cards have thrown 4 of Swords at me repeatedly - deep rest.
Problem is, I don’t know how to rest and keep doing it until I’m well. I fall flat, get up, wobble for a bit, then get back on my motorbike and roar off at 100kmph.
I don’t know how to keep lying down, or what to do while I’m down there.
I'm so sorry you've faced these troubles! While you are lying down, one idea is to practice the art of noticing - just noticing all the good things and the astonishments in your world.
Yes on the goosebumps..I'm reminded of illustrator Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies series, published a century ago, which entranced my sister and me when we were small. The books so small and the fairies wild-haired and delicate, and very industrious in their acorn cap hats and bare feet...thank you!
Susan,
Thank you for recommending this book. I finished reading it yesterday. It was great to learn how to winter when wintering. It's also an affirmation to know that what I'm experiencing this winter is actually part of life and living ie. "normal."
Shalom...
Time to add another book to my list! That passage grabbed me in the first few sentences.
I think I've wintered several times, the two that were the toughest were after the loss of my first baby and then, years later, the loss of my mother.
During that first wintering, I did not want to engage with the world. I wrote in my journal, I wrote grief-laden poems, and I just didn't care about anything. I left my home on very few occasions. I just needed to burrow into my little cocoon to sit in my grief and figure a way out.
Years later, after losing my mother, I fell into another wintering. We used to spend so much time together--she loved her grandchildren. We shopped, went to the park, took day trips together. We knew her time was limited. She was sick, very sick. After her death, the shopping trips felt empty, the trips to the playground felt lonely. Things we did so often together no longer mattered to me. I hunkered down at home with the kids, and we shared memories of their mémère, my dear, sweet mother.
It was also the same time that a long-time friendship ended for me. This person stood me up the weekend after my mom passed away. My mom had taken her in when she had nowhere to live, and when that happened, that weekend became the end of a relationship that had me falling more deeply into my wintering. I felt betrayed, and she was one of the very few friends I had. That was a rough time, but I'm so glad I had my three wonderful children, who lifted my spirits and gave me a reason to crawl out of that wintering phase of my life.
Now, I think I've entered another season of wintering. As a caregiver to my three adult children, I find myself wrestling with the fact that my remaining years on this planet are not going as I had hoped and planned they would. I feel grief sometimes that I can't follow the dreams I had for my later years in life. It's been a slow crawl into this season of wintering again, and I'm finding it hard to imagine when (and if) it will end.
I was very move by this letter, words touching my heart tears longing to feel internal spring
bloom again, wintering hues of life's reflection bring depth to present
richer than before, shackles drew depth to beauty I never seen before...
You know this pain it always going to be apart us in some way but if we allow ourselves to
open are hearts to it we can find the wisdom the" water within the tears" that grows life anew again, it's not that the pain of yesterday's goes away, it just through a heart's opening were allowing ourselves to find the teachings to move forward with it, creating meaning, beauty depths, life anew... May we all find Healing!
I love the excerpt and will order her book right now. I am prone to these winterings. Fell into one as the days shortened and the nights grew forever long. And yes, I feel alone & plenty ashamed that I still struggle at this age. I started d3+k2 several days ago and am noticing a nice improvement. Am also on a month long winter sabbatical with my husband and dog, campervaning cross-country. Feels so good to be in nature. Told my husband on this trip we’re only doing what feels nourishing to our soul. He’s game. So sweet. And Zorro, my dog, has the sweetest eyes ever and loves zoomies in the snow. This is our time for rest & restoration. Thank you so much for your gentle postings.
I read "Wintering" in 2022, at the start of my own wintering period. I had been in survival mode for three full years and needed to retreat from the world. And so I did. I don't recall how I came across "Wintering." I think possibly from an email I received from my local bookstore. But when I did, it hit me...the resonance and knowing...that this was a book I needed to read. It was comforting to hear someone else's voice so eloquently assure me that what I needed and what I was in fact doing for myself was natural, inevitable, and human. That I wasn't alone, that "this too shall pass." And as my own inner voice had told me but I was struggling to believe...that I would even be better off for it. I had a long, non-linear wintering (as probably many others have experienced). I came out when I felt a burst of energy, retreated again when it was too much or some new challenge knocked me down. Again, and again, repeat, etc. Until finally I felt like a wiser, more resilient, better version of my former self. I agree with Katherine...Wintering is hard but neccessary. What I have found with my past wintering (and a couple others that were also formative bur shorter in length) is that when it's over, I feel liberated. In the wintering, I shed what I need to in order to move forward. And it feels really amazing, hard-earned, and joyous to want to live fully again. Thank you for your book, Katherine. I really loved it.
I read Wintering when it was published, during a time of my own deep and painful wintering. I had just been diagnosed with cancer and was frantically seeking comfort, and discovering that I could no longer find comfort in the usual places. This book and a few others—your Bittersweet among them, Susan—gave me the kind of comfort I was seeking. Eternally grateful.
Thank you so much for this post. I am writing this through tears of emotional release because Katherine’s short excerpt touched on exactly what I’ve been unable to articulate or understand over the last year. My self imposed isolation, slow moving, deep thoughts, of try to figure out, not exactly what was ‘wrong’ with me, but that feeling of ‘not done’ but what’s next? And, impatience as a Capricorn at finding that next and “getting on with it”. Almost 65, widowed, no kids and buried in my work to keep from Wintering, I believe I will try to breathe, and pick up a book that may give me more to think about what I’m going through. Thank you so much.
Hi Donna. Just want to tell you I see you and hear you. I’m 61 and in a self-imposed isolation (aside from work) as well. I’m going about my day and being socially kind, but I’m psychologically hibernating and nesting in my quiet home. I have found it to be beautiful and needed. Peace to you.
you're so welcome, and wishing you lots of strength and sustenance as you pass through this season, Donna!
Thank you for this post. Wintering, Bittersweet, and Quiet are three books that have profoundly changed my life - how I experience the world, my feelings, how I approach life; it is wonderful to see you both briefly on the same platform. I am reading Wintering currently for the second time. The passage above is so beautifully written and so acutely aligned to the human experience. Thank you again.
I bought “Wintering” in the fall of 24, but it’s still sitting in my pile of books. The excerpt has convinced me that it’s just what I need right about now.
Wintering was an important and loved book for me. This Goodreads highlight I saved speaks deeply to me - A desire to find life in the world around me, the trees and stones and bodies of water, the birds and mammals that enter my line of sight. Mine is a personal animism, hushed by my conscious brain, nurtured by my unconscious.
Have not read Katherine May's work before. But as soon as I finished reading this excerpt I ordered the book. WOW!!! I am so looking forward to reading her work. We all have a story. I feel there is power in words that connect our stories.
Yes. I have had a season of wintering affect me in a significant way. Yes, this excerpt did shine a light. It reminded me there are so many of life's experiences that do change who we are, and where we were going. But we do have time if we get help to find who we were, and where we want to be.
I believe I will really enjoy Katherine's book. Thank you Susan for highlighting Katherine May's work.
More than poetic and metaphoric, wintering is substantive and even subversive in our tough-minded culture. It names a less-named human experience. It normalizes and humanizes a wholesome gift to oneself. It listens beneath the surface, tending to deeper whispers of the body and spirit, and gives generous permission for "me time" or an extended "mental health day." It is a finely attuned form of emotional self-regulation when caught in the middle of demanding challenges. To trust one's intuition is to surrender the default mode of powering through the dark days, while honoring the heart's wisdom and self-compassion. Wintering is an act of active retreat, and a treat to the body and soul, too, moving into the slower lane of life, entering a laying-low rhythm, and letting winter run its full course. Then comes the season of unwintering as the world bids me to come. Rejuvenated and refreshed, I will follow the call, having encountered my inner capacity for resilience and vulnerability.
I love the idea of wintering. I also love the painting by Kaoru Yamada of the coffee shop. It is untitled, and I wasn't able to find it when I searched Yamada's gorgeous works that I was linked to. Any idea where one could find this beautiful print?
https://prints.kaoru-creation.com/featured/inside-the-warm-glow-kaoru-yamada.html
Thank you, Lissa
shoot I wish I could remember where I found it!
I was a bit non-plussed when I found that this artist uses AI to create their art. Ugh. Doesn't seem authentic to me. Who knows...maybe they are not even a real person?
I think she may use a combination of her own work and AI? But I'm actually not sure.
I appreciate readings like this because it validates my instinct that there are going to be times when I have to rest, take stock, reassess, and try something different. I find myself using the word “setback” and I recognize that doesn’t feel good nor is it helpful. I like wintering instead.
I do believe 2025 has been forcing me to winter, through repeated illness, exhaustion, and creative doldrums that I kept refusing to acknowledge. My tarot cards have thrown 4 of Swords at me repeatedly - deep rest.
Problem is, I don’t know how to rest and keep doing it until I’m well. I fall flat, get up, wobble for a bit, then get back on my motorbike and roar off at 100kmph.
I don’t know how to keep lying down, or what to do while I’m down there.
I'm so sorry you've faced these troubles! While you are lying down, one idea is to practice the art of noticing - just noticing all the good things and the astonishments in your world.
Yes on the goosebumps..I'm reminded of illustrator Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies series, published a century ago, which entranced my sister and me when we were small. The books so small and the fairies wild-haired and delicate, and very industrious in their acorn cap hats and bare feet...thank you!