“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”

― Albert Camus, L’ete

Image by Will Worthington from the Wildwood Tarot by Mark Ryan and John Matthews

I’ve been thinking about winter a lot lately. Yes, winter. I’ve been thinking about winter in the literal, seasonal sense -about the beauty and difficulty of the season, about what it does to my body and my mind, about how to get through it - but I’ve also been thinking about winter in the metaphorical sense. Because winter is not just a season of weather, it’s a spiritual season as well. And we’re not given much good advice on how to prepare and survive to survive a spiritual winter, are we?

I’m interested in improving my spiritual wintering skills. So instead of waiting for these insights to condense into wisdom slowly over time, I’m taking them immediately to the page, to process as I write in real time. Figuring things out as I write… one typo at a time…is kind of a specialty of mine. Bear with me…sometimes I’m a slow processor of basic truths.

The reason I want so much to write and think about winter is because last November I happened to have found myself smack in the middle of an intense spiritual winter. It was one of my own making - a result of a chain of irreversible life events that I intentionally set into motion in pursuit of a dream. I thought I was doing pretty well handling all the vicissitudes of change, but as the cold began to blow and the leathery oak leaves gathered in rusty-colored, frozen mats at my doorstep, I began to feel the depth of my inner winter coinciding with the gathering outer winter and it freaked me out. I was afraid I didn’t have what it took to endure the loneliness, loss, and struggle that this particular spiritual winter was asking of me.

It was right about that time that I read Katharine May’s Wintering. I saw the title pop into my recommendations list just when the first snows were beginning to fall and I instinctively knew it was going to be an important read for me. And it was. There’s a lot of validating, nourishing, strengthening perspectives on winter in there, including what she calls the winter of the soul. She says wintering 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.” She says we all go through these times in our lives for various reasons (including, but not limited to actual seasonal winter) and that “However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. Yet it’s also inevitable.”

This idea resonates deeply with me. My experience reading Wintering was a lot like how it feels to rediscover that one glove in the melting snowbank by your car in late March - the one you were missing all winter. (I knew you were there somewhere! What do I do with this mud soaked glove now?! I wish I had known it was here back when I needed it! How did I not see it laying in the snow?) It was one of those books that brought to light themes and truths that have always been there, beneath the surface; things I couldn’t quite articulate or put my finger on. It got me thinking about how I could winter better, like Katharine May. Could I be as brave as she was, when she took the polar plunge into the freezing ocean in the middle of winter…just for fun?! I find myself asking this every time I open the door and the arctic breeze blasts me in the face. Honestly, I’m still not sure I have it in me.

I’m also thinking about winter because it’s hard to think about anything else when it’s so f***ing cold out. It was -10 degrees when I woke up this morning. Tonight it’s supposed to get down to -20. Brrr! It’s not my first Vermont winter, but it is my first one in over 17 years. The last time I lived up here I was fresh out of high school and didn’t think outerwear was worth the trouble or expense. I thought I was too cool for winter, I guess. Needless to say, I didn’t last more than a couple years before retreating a little farther south where winter’s edges are a little softer.

It’s not that I dislike winter entirely. I wouldn’t want to live long term anywhere that doesn’t have some kind of real winter season. I actually find a lot of meaning and beauty in the harshness of winter. As hard as it is, and always has been for me, I retain a steadfast New England belief in my gut that winter is, somehow, necessary. I mean, it is….right? Right?

Believing in the essential necessity of winter doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with it, especially mentally. Despite my hardcore New Englander roots, I am challenged by the isolation, sense of stagnation, boredom, and disconnection from nature that winter time brings.

The worst thing about winter is how thoroughly it possesses me. I usually go into November thinking I'll be fine. This year will be different. It’s easy to get swept up in the holiday vibes at the beginning of winter, but come January, my heart tends to feel as shriveled and cracked as the skin around my nails. Despite my best attempts to practice good coping strategies, winter still rattles my mind like drafty old window panes in an arctic blast. And then by March, forget it; my mind is an inhospitable tundra and any familiar landmarks of my former healthy sense of self have been entirely whited out.

In early march, it feels like trying to navigate my life in white out conditions. If I don’t keep my eyes on a fixed point on the horizon (spring), and keep putting one foot in front of the other (get out of bed every day) I could easily lose my bearings and wander off towards the vast, empty white world of meaninglessness. It’s no wonder March is mental health awareness month.

Over the years, my struggles with winter have developed into a low grade anxiety about the season that begins right after summer solstice and grows as the light decreases. Around Halloween, it’s become normal for me to feel genuine fear about the coming dark and cold.

This year, however, something changed. I think I finally broke through something. Ice, maybe? This year, the old winter hag left some gifts out in the snow for me. Let me tell you what winter treasures I’ve found.

White Out Navigation Technique 1: Bearing Off

When navigating in a blizzard or white out conditions, Bearing Off is a technique where you intentionally take a bearing that is a few degrees off of your true desired destination in order to hit an obvious handrail feature that ensures you won’t miss your destination. (from Bakermountainguides.com)

I’m thinking about winter because collectively, we have all been going through a spiritual winter over the last few years. In 2020, just as the snows were starting to melt and the first signs of spring were appearing to grace our hearts with hope for a new beginning, the Covid crisis plunged us into the darkest of global winters. We still haven’t emerged.

You’d think that given everything I just said about how hard winter is on my mental health, that I would want to avoid making winter any harder than it has to be. Given the harshness of the pandemic times, you’d think I would choose to lay low and ride out the storm, staying as comfortable and safe in a familiar setting. Nope, not me. Instead of accommodating the fears and sticking with what was familiar, or heading south to warmer, gentler climates, I went in the opposite direction. My decision to move north, away from family and friends, away from my support network to a rural area in colder climate where I knew no one during the height of the pandemic surprised me as much as anyone else. It went against the grain of logical thought.

I won't try to explain all the reasons for this move, but suffice it to say that the decision to uproot was made on the advice of my dreams, with guidance from my wise, inner dream teacher, in pursuit of a higher calling - a vision of how my life could be. And the price of attaining that dream desire was that I face my fears: isolation, stagnation, loneliness, and lack of support.

Tarot readers like to call times like this the ‘dark night of the soul.’ Think of cards like The Tower, the 9 of Swords and the 10 of Swords - the ones we dread getting in a reading.

When I accepted the call to move back to northcountry, I knew it would be worth that heavy price. I knew what I was getting into. I knew it would be a long, slow, process that would require a lot of fortitude, trust, and patience. I also knew there would be more winter to prepare for. Winter can be a whole 6 weeks longer up here and many degrees colder. That’s more than enough reason to lose one’s mind. So I wanted to prepare. I thought maybe the proper preparations would soften the blow as much as I could. I did my research.

White Out Navigation Tip 2: Get low to the ground. The absence of a horizon can quickly cause vertigo and disorientation.

Vermonters are practical folk. And they are full of good, practical advice for surviving winter. They gave me plenty of it upon my arrival up here last autumn. Most of it boiled down to snow tires, winter sports and making your home as cozy and warm as possible (spray foam insulation companies do good business up here). Since this was my second attempt at making a life in Vermont, I figured I should take winter more seriously this time around. So I put aside my aversion to other people’s advice, sucked it up, and did the necessary recommended prep: I stockpiled hot chocolate, puzzles, library books and ice melt. I bought knitting supplies, fleece slippers and ice cleats and set the heating oil on automatic delivery. I signed up my son for winter sports and got the numbers of several of the local kids’ parents so we could coordinate playdates. I introduced myself to my neighbors. I nailed those draft protectors onto the bottom of our doors. I got the best winter boots I could buy. I even read instructions on how to navigate in white out conditions. It seemed like a good thing to know, you know, just in case.

Now, in the full blast of January’s polar vortex, I look back and chuckle at my naivete, AGAIN. How silly of me to think I could outsmart winter. Sure, practical preparations can insulate you from the sharp bite of the cold, but there’s a deeper spiritual loneliness that accompanies winter, hiding in the folds of Old Man Winter’s cloak. It’s a harrowing, hallowing kind of loneliness that aches like arthritis of the soul. And there is no amount of hot chocolate or hot baths that will fill that void (I’ve tried). I don’t ski yet, but I have a sinking feeling that even if I was an Olympic level skier, I wouldn’t be able to outpace, prevent or relieve the inevitable chill of winter in my soul. This is the truth of the spiritual winter, or the dark night of the soul: there is no way to avoid it. As Robert Frost said, “The best way out is always through”

White Out Survival Technique 3: Head for the nearest tree.

I’ve been experiencing or trying to avoid experiencing spiritual loneliness my whole life. I think, perhaps, I came back north to finally face it. At least that’s the thought that came to me when I was observing the black cloud of crows in the trees at dusk the other night. I had been noticing a huge number of them in the same cluster of oak trees on my daily walk to the river. I was so curious to know what they were all up to in those trees together so I googled it. Turns out they gather mostly to avoid loneliness. Well, actually the scientific explanation is that they gather in numbers as a winter survival strategy to avoid predation and to gain body heat. But if you read between the lines, I think it’s pretty clear that they get too cold, scared, and lonely all winter long to sit out on a limb all by themselves.

That makes me wonder how a crow experiences loneliness. Do they look forward to the winter as an annual celebration time? Or do they resent having to congregate in such big numbers to stay alive? Does loneliness have a higher meaning or purpose for crows as it can for humans?

“This bird’s brain grows in winter to remember where it stashed its food” - NPR

A lot of wise and intelligent folks have written about spiritual loneliness, what it is, where it comes from and how to deal with it. I did not know that until about 5 minutes ago. I didn’t even know it had a name, let alone a purpose. It’s always been something private, inexplicable…something to avoid and something to hide. When I say the words ‘spiritual loneliness’ many people will just intuitively understand what this means. I think it’s one of the things, if you know you know.

Here’s what I’ve decided I think about wintering and spiritual loneliness: it’s there for a reason. It has meaning. Like death and night, it is part of a natural rhythm that has a wisdom, intelligence, and magic to it that is bigger than human logic. I think we suffer when we are out of sync with the rhythm and magic of winter itself.

Here’s another nugget of winter gold I’ve minded from my spiritual winter: if you want to progress in your soul’s evolution, sooner or later you must face aloneness and learn to endure it. No doubt about it, winter is hard work. But like any good labor, it can bring as great a reward as it can inflict trauma to those unprepared or unconditioned to sustain it. Winter magic is especially potent. It’s our job to observe and learn to know ourselves well enough that we know what kind of dose of winter we can handle. You have to know how to dose it correctly to get the medicine.

White Out Navigation Technique 4: Find your bearings and add depth perception.

In true white out conditions, depth perception can be lost and it can be difficult to gauge the terrain in front of you. Look for landmarks like rocks or use a ski pole to mark a starting point to navigate from. Toss a ball of snow or rope out in front of you to help determine the grade of the slope in front of you.

It’s tempting to try and stay busy in winter. Between holidays and then the new year's self-improvement goals, there’s never a shortage of striving and tasks to complete. Keeping your hands busy and your social calendar full can distract you from some of the darker depressive moments of a soul’s winter season. But if there is one thing winter has taught me this year, it’s DON’T be tempted by the New Year’s Resolution hype crowd to set your goals any farther than you can realistically reach in your current limitations and conditions. That truth can be hard to face for someone like me who has lofty dreams, a tendency toward perfectionism, and who loves making a long to-do list more than to-doing the things on the list. I can also see Winter rolling her eyes as I write that. She ALWAYS has other plans (usually lots of naps, maybe some reading). Repeat after me: this is a time for small, realistic goals. When just getting out the door and in the car takes 20 minutes of prep on a good day and trying to stay hydrated and preventing my skin from cracking feels like a full time job - it’s not the time to try and race toward big ambitions. This is a time to make smart, energy-conserving moves. Big picture= many small steps.

Even though I know the truth of the last paragraph, I resist it. Here, in my dream’s waiting room, as I wait and wait and wait for my wish to come true, it is easy to forget I have a destination beyond where I am. It is easy to feel this will never end. My heart drops as my hopes shrink back from the grand plans I laid last spring to just getting through the day.

Just writing this down feels like facing my fears. The fear that I will never get there. The fear I will fail to live an extraordinary life. The fear that I am not good enough for grand plans. The fear that the universe is not friendly or supportive, but hostile, and that there is no meaning to any of it anyway, and that all my hopes and desires are nothing more than seeds blown to the winds with nowhere to land and root. The fear that I will never reach full bloom. The fear I will die defeated and full of regrets. The fear that I am stuck and alone, abandoned by everyone and everything I love.

These thoughts are the depth of my soul’s winter. When they arise, I’m in the white out.

White Out Navigation Technique 5 : Handrails

These are obvious physical terrain features that you can use as a “handrail” to ensure that you don’t get off route. A creek or river, ridgelines, valley bottoms, couloirs, and roads are all obvious terrain features that you’ll recognize when you hit them, even in a whiteout.

This year, because I have forced myself into a situation where I must feel these things, where I must sit with my fears and feel the negative emotions that arise from the challenges of my situation, I realize even in the midst of these stormy thoughts, that I'm doing okay. Actually, better than okay. I haven’t lost my mind. My heart’s not broken. The biggest surprise of all: I can handle it. There’s a phrase I always say to my daughter when she’s having a panic attack: You can do hard things. This is the handrail I am clinging to as I work through my fears.

(leaving lots of white space here to promote pausing and reflection on that last thing I wrote)

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Now comes the part where I get to share all the good things I’ve learned (am learning) about navigating spiritual winter and winter blues.

From WildWood Tarot by Mark Ryan and John Matthews

White Out Navigation Technique 6: Stay Calm. Prepare to Stop and Shelter

Whatever happens don’t panic. If you fear for your safety or are worried about getting lost, it’s time to hunker down. Hopefully you are prepared to spend some time in the mountains. Grab your rescue tarp and build a shelter, throw on your down jacket, eat a snack, and drink some water. It’s better to sit tight than to get lost or get injured. (From mountainjourney.com)

When I’m not freaking out about having these thoughts and feelings, I’m learning to accept them. Slowly, I’m learning to see them as just another fixture of the season of winter. I suppose I’m learning to look at this year’s wintering as a form of exposure therapy. For people with intense anxieties, OCD or related conditions, a common therapeutic approach called Exposure Therapy involves intentionally exposing yourself to whatever causes the fear response. Based on the research that suggests that avoidance reinforces fear, this kind of therapy aims at habituating the individual through repeated exposure so that they can learn to ignore the stimulus over time.

With repeated exposure to the life conditions that bring up these fear-thoughts and sad feelings, I begin to see them right sized. I can even appreciate isolation and loneliness and the gift of open time and space they bring into my life. I am beginning to see angst and loneliness as familiar landmarks of January. It’s emotional/psychological terrain that is tricky to navigate, but not impossible. I’m discovering my own agility in these tricky emotional landscapes, and I’m improving my ability to be still and noticing how my energy is conserved through stillness.

Have you heard of the Wim Hof method? Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman, is a kind of a big deal. He’s an extreme athlete who has conditioned his body to withstand extreme conditions and freezing temperatures. He’s well known for sustaining a normal heart rate and body temperature while submerged in ice water for hours and hours. Basically it’s all about deep breathing. In and out. I don’t have the patience for Wim Hof’s program, but I've learned from my hubby(who got really into his techniques a few years ago) that the kind of breathing you do has everything to do with your body’s resilience to environmental stress such as cold.

I like to think of the work I’m doing by facing my fears of isolation, depression and despair as a kind of emotional Wim Hof method. I’m going to go ahead and brag a little here, because I might be developing some serious emotional muscles and I think it shows. I can tell this is true because when I’m sitting in a coaching or hypnosis session with a client and they suddenly tap into a deep well of their buried emotional pain, I don’t feel uncomfortable or squirmy like I did many years ago when I first began this work. I feel ready and willing to welcome the flow of tears or hard emotions, aware of the sense of relief that comes from the release. I can even feel reverence for this process, when it happens. I can empathize without getting sucked in or feeling my own pain body get activated beyond the limits of healthy compassion. These are all the results of some serious heavy-weight emotional lifting I’ve been doing through the many spiritual winters I have endured, and boy, I am proud of that!

I like to anchor the invisible, inner emotional work into some kind of outer physical expression, so with this exposure-therapy-Wim-Hoff philosophy in mind, I have also been forcing myself to go outside everyday, even just for 20 minutes. Maybe it’s because I have better footwear and warmer socks now, or perhaps it’s because I recently discovered the joys of the hot water bottle (Where have you been all my life dear hot water bottle?! Seriously, why am I just learning about this thing now?) but this small act of being out in the elements everyday has, hands down, been the best winter-blues-buster strategy I’ve tried.

When I don't want to go outside in the cold for another boring, uncomfortable walk in the dirty snow, I trick myself into it by calling it foraging. I’m currently living in a suburban neighborhood. It’s muggle land, not exactly like Harry Potter’s dreaded Privet drive, but close enough. My yard is mostly a driveway. I know it’s temporary, but it’s hard on my heart to be cut off from my garden, from the forest and the wild places. Perhaps in defiance of this reality, I’ve enjoyed the challenge of finding the wild, green spaces in this muggle land. It’s like a little game I play with myself - can I find wild medicine today? I’m often amazed how easy it is to find and access medicine here, even in the dead of winter. Usnea falls off the oak trees on the little hill behind my street, and a small woods of white pine and hemlock stands between the graveyard and highway just a short walk from my street. I’ve managed to gather enough to make a pot of tea each time I’ve walked. I’ve gotten to know many lichens and mosses.

The secret here is that winter foraging is actually treasure hunting. I’ve never felt so rich and lucky as when I find Rosa multiflora thriving in the untended winter thicket, offering beautiful red hips for good-cheer tea.

White Out Navigation Technique 7: Iron Caterpillar

Make this your default uphill technique for ensuring the squad stays together in whiteout conditions. It’s pretty self-explanatory: Stay just behind the person in front of you (tip to tail if you’re on skis), and, like Ludacris says: “When I move you move”. Just like that. (From Bakermountainguides.com)

Just the name Iron Caterpillar makes me feel stronger inside. If winter had a spirit animal, I’d wager it would be called “Iron Caterpillar”. I don’t have an elaborate metaphor here, I just love this name and I want to think of this every time I’m having trouble slogging through a day. I’ll think like the Iron Caterpillar when I’m feeling shy about asking for someone else’s time or energy. The Iron Caterpillar technique reminds me to make no bones about asking the nearest (or most willing or accessible) friend or loved one to be a guide for the next hour or two, just until I make it to the next mile marker in my day or night, because it’s understood you’ll take turns, and next time, you’ll be the one guiding us through a chunk of a winter day to the next planned activity, meal, task or routine. I suggest you memorize the term iron caterpillar and teach it to everyone in your circle.

White Out Navigation 101: Pack the Right Tools.

This tip should perhaps have come first on the list. Survival in blizzard conditions is impossible without some protective gear. Navigating through white out conditions is made a lot easier by use of a gps, compass and map, altimeter, skis or crampons and poles, tarp or tent, and plenty of water and food, etc.

I hope you have a good winter survival kit. If you don’t, ask a native Vermonter. They will give you a long list of items you’ll need as well as activities and tasks to do. They might throw some maple syrup in there too.

I agree with all their advice and bow to their northern wisdom. And I’ve added a few less practical, but for me, more soul-satisfying things to that hunker-down-winter- survival-kit list. Because the soul doesn’t need snow tires, it craves meaning, purpose, magic, beauty, connection, mystery, love, and expression. The following list are the things that truly feel like that rescue tarp for my soul when I’m feeling lost, disheartened, or empty inside.

Get to know the closest wild places and spend time gathering the winter goodness there. Try to get out most days, and NEVER stay inside for more than 2 days at a time without venturing for at least 20 minutes. Observe animal tracks and learn to understand their movements like a hunter or tracker. The snow reveals animal secrets.
Remember that your body IS nature. Write this down. Remind yourself daily. Stick it on your fridge if you like. As long as you have a body and can sense it, you are connected to nature. Don’t doubt this connection, despite what anyone says. You are nature. What you experience in your body is nature. All of your negative feelings, thoughts, and sensations included. Your depression. Your anger. Your loneliness. They are also nature, because you are a living, biological animal with a nervous system that evolved with nature. That connection is real, it matters, and it deserves your attention. Do not buy into the myth that we are bad, wrong, or disconnected from nature. This human-positive belief will help you winter more peacefully.
Make fire. Real fire. Burn beeswax candles. I don’t have a fireplace or woodstove in my current apartment, so I made a small fire pit in our tiny little yard. Sitting around it on a cold winter night is perhaps as essential as supplementing with Vitamin D. On evenings when you feel restless, depressed, or alone, turn off your electric lights and light a fire (or candles). You will immediately feel more alive, more in tune, and more in touch with winter magic. It’s dark out there.
Open your eyes to the heavens. Get to know the stars. Observe and track the moon. What do the clouds tell you about the coming weather? Winter reveals the secret movements of the celestial bodies. Notice where on the horizon (or neighbor’s roofline if you're in a crowded neighborhood like me) the sun and moon rises and sets. There are great apps out there nowadays that will help you learn the names and ID the constellations and planets. Worth it.
St John's Wort. Due to extensive clinical studies and marketing, many people know this plant as an herbal antidepressant. As a folk herbalist, I like to imagine it more as a summery plant friend who comes to visit you and brings the warm summer sun with her. She keeps you company, uplifting and enlightening your dark winter mood, reminding you of what it feels like to lay out in the grass in midsummer on a clear day, or ride your bike to the beach on an endless summer afternoon. Suggested dose: 1 tsp of tincture 3 times a day for seasonal depression symptoms.
Vitamin D. I’m not a fan of taking supplements in general, but as a very fair-skinned Irish gal, I know I need help in this area. I have noticed tremendous benefit in my overall health and immune function by supplementing with Vit D regularly.
Befriend the stones. Winter reveals the unique textures and personalities of stones all around you. Boulders, field stones, and pebbles…they each have a story, a frequency, a legacy. Don’t bother with the expensive crystal shops. Go find the ones that catch your eye in the woods, by the creek, in your yard. Take some home with you. Put them around on counters and windowsills and nightstands. These are friends that know how to bear the elements. They will support you, energetically, if you ask.
Have a love affair with light. It’s most precious this time of year. Kiss the sunrise and allow the sunset touch your neck, your wrists. Let the winter light play with your hair. There is so much soul medicine in the beauty of light.
Houseplants. You can never have too many. And the best part is you get to go to the greenhouse and drink in that warm, humid air while you shop for your new winter plant ally.
Wet heat. I don’t have a sauna, and Covid shut down the one at my gym, so I settle for hot baths. Almost every night. Hot enough that it almost hurts. Hot enough that I start sweating and welcome the cold when I finally emerge, steaming and dripping. This has become my favorite way to end the day.
Practice tolerating emptiness. The secret gift of winter is time and space. Spiritual loneliness is really just clearing space in your soul. The human heart is freaked out by empty space and wants it filled and will seek to connect with everything and anything in order to fill the empty space. Resist that impulse. Allow the emptiness to hold you open. Think about winter as the Marie Kondo of the soul. What can you do with all that time and space? The longer you wait and learn to tolerate the empty space, the more you will become wise to what deeper longings you have, and the better you will be at selecting consciously the things that spark joy in your soul.

Wishing you all the blessings that winter can offer,

Audrey