I’m still listening to Wintering by Katherine May. I bought the book on release in 2020, but counterintuitively was still ploughing the way through my own season of wintering, which I entered in February 1919 and, honestly, don’t think I shifted until 2021 when I found life easier, breathing better and I had released so many tightly held thoughts and emotions and expectations, hopes and dreams. I sometimes think if I had to capture that time in a picture it would be me, bent double with the weight, grasping at the red, dead and lead balloons that were my worries and stresses at that time, and slowly straightening with every heavy lead balloon I released into the sky.

I am in a better place now, not Wintering emotionally but only physically as the rain beats against my office window and I feel a breeze from a slight crack creep round the door.

If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

I was excited to go on the Wintering retreat day on Saturday. It wasn’t clear on the flyer what the day would be like, but I expected time to think, be and to create. Six hours out of life is quite an ask, even in a well-ordered and balanced life like mine. Indeed, it’s an even bigger ask, because the life has routine and ritual that rolls on like a well-oiled machine. It’s a good thing to do, though. I am conscious that without giving myself space and time to create it is very easy to drop that part. I certainly know I took up crochet as a craft because of the ease one could pick it up and put it down in a way that cross stitch, art or modelling can’t be.

“Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

We took time in the retreat to consider what Winter means to us; in my case it’s very much tied up with hygge. Hygge is my defence system against the hardships of winter. I withdraw, light my candles, find my tribe and create a nest, a sanctuary where the harshest storms and wildest winds leave me alone. Only when I venture out do I feel the full force of Winter emotionally or physically. Obviously, one can’t stay eternally in a cosy space, one has to live fully, participate in life and risk the painful blasts of rejection, loneliness, or decay. We considered the objects and images we had brought, and the first creative endeavour we had was to draw an image using pastels inspired by either our objects or our images.

I love how you can see the texture of the watercolour paper I chose to use. Maggie is a very good artist, and a good teacher because she doesn’t order or control, she sort of shows you what’s available and sets you off free.

Obviously, my picture didn’t take me all the time available. I decided to do something a little more…. childish, really, with the oil crayons, and tried to capture a night sky.

I think this is the image I’m least happy with. It’s okay, but I really wanted to catch the light of the pink sky, the glistening of the snow and the trees as dark shapeless shadows. Also, I wanted to have some representation of the vastness of space, a recognition of Nature as a force we live with but can’t control.

“Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom resides in those who have wintered.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

We had lunch, emmental cheese and ham sandwich for me, and cake (Maggie bakes lovely carrot cake, well worth a slice) and then we settled down for the afternoon.

It’s very easy to dismiss Winter as a season, especially as no more than a canvas that we overlay Christmas on to. The bright lights and loud noises (Whamageddon, I’m looking at you) can blind us to the deep beauty and opportunity that Winter brings. In our rush to party, participate and pre-empt Spring, we ignore that the best life can only start after hibernation, being buried deep in the ground and, in the case of certain bulbs and flowers, only once we’ve been bitten by the pain of frost.

Our lunchtime meditation/task was to consider Winter from a different angle. What did we think we’d learned from the day so far? What in our current life were we thankful for, and grateful to have received? And what were we anticipating for ourselves in Winter proper? What activities, or loss of activites were we looking forward to, or what did we want to include in our Wintering going forward.

Maggie asked us to consider our path through Winter/Wintering. One of the retreatants chose to do a tree dividing his page, and to make half dark, over-bearing and gloomy (where he felt his family had been) while the future was sunny, welcoming and bright. I liked that idea: that his wintering was through pain to beauty.

My path, I felt, was over the mountains. I’m buried in Winter, hibernating and letting life simmer, so I painted that road.

It’s acrylics on watercolour paper. I had a fabulous time doing it although I would say that two and a half hours passes so quickly when you’re totally absorbed in a task. There were six of us there in the afternoon and although we spoke to each other in dribs and drabs for the most part we were silent, that absorbed and productive, comfortable silence when people are engaged, fully involved and achieving flow.

Do I ever give myself three hours to paint? No, I do not. There are very few days when I feel free to take three hours to do anything. I love an occasional weekend when I settle down to read a book and give myself permission to let the house go while I enjoy the escape. Winter is a great time to carve out space to do your flow activity. Turn down invitations, use a cough or cold as an excuse to bail on your usual activities, make it clear that the weather is frightful (no matter that the Winter sunshine slants in at the window) and today you cannot stand at the sidelines but will watch the match from within a car.

“Winter is when I reorganise my bookshelves and read all the books I acquired in the previous year and failed to actually read. It is also the time when I reread beloved novels, for the pleasure of reacquainting myself with old friends. In summer, I want big, splashy ideas and trashy page-turners, devoured while lounging in a garden chair or perching on one of the breakwaters on the beach. In winter, I want concepts to chew over in a pool of lamplight—slow, spiritual reading, a reinforcement of the soul. Winter is a time for libraries, the muffled quiet of bookstacks and the scent of old pages and dust. In winter, I can spend hours in silent pursuit of a half-understood concept or a detail of history. There is nowhere else to be, after all.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Find your flow activity. Keep it at hand. Carve out the space to do it, even at the risk of letting your toilet go uncleaned for a day or two (or week or so). Winter has to involve us taking care of ourselves. Slowing down, eating well, sleeping when we need it rather than when we think we can…. these are all self care activities and vital for our wellbeing. Creating, I’d argue, is on that list. The making of something, whether that’s a scarf, a picture, a cake or a great pass in a game of chequers, is vital to us as humans.

“Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

I loved my day of Wintering. It reinvigorated me, gave me assurance that hygge (cakes, candles, friends and crafts) isn’t an extra but a definite requirement for my happy life. I came home, cooked a tasty meal and got on with life. But I have stuck my pictures up on the wall to admire. I can sit and look at my Winter path. Who knows? I may write poetry inspired by it. I might just complete that great, vast, blue King-size blanket I have been making for years now, and take to having early nights with a bath, a book and a beaker of hot chocolate.

“This is a time in which very few activities seem right. Mostly I read at this hour, perusing the pile of books that live by my favourite chair, waiting to offer up fragments of learning, rather than inviting cover-to-cover pursuits. I browse a chapter here, a segment there, or hunt through an index for a matter that’s on my mind. I love such loose, exploratory reading. For once, I am not reading to escape; instead, having already made my getaway, I am able to roam through the extra space I’ve found, as restless and impatient as I like, revelling in the play of my own absorption. They say that we should dance like no one is watching. I think that applies to reading, too.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

What is your chosen Wintering activity? Do you paint? Craft? Read? Do you walk in the city or landscape? Find friends in the flames of the fire? Lose your way in a game or a quest? It’s good to gain inspiration from others, and to find out that we are never alone, even in the deepest, darkest moments.

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. Lent is a season of rituals and resets. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

My Christmas books are always available: Have Yourself a Happy Hygge Christmas is a good place to start, on how to make the season cosier, happier. Celebrating a Contagious Christmas was written during covid year, but has useful advice on celebrating when times are hard anyway and Enjoying a Self-Care Christmas is a short e-book on keeping Christmas simpler, easier and better for you, your waistline and your budget. It even includes 25+ suggestions for self-care activities over Christmas, as simple as sipping tea, keeping a list journal or lighting a candle. Bigger is not always better for Christmas.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of spring/summer.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash. I’m using it from now until January as a real reminder of the power of light. I loved the simplicity of the shot, the focus on the one candle, the reminder that there are many lights out there if we open our hearts to them and the combination of candle and nature in creating a cosy Christmas.