wintering in summer
lessons from "wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times"
We often imagine life as a straight path. But it’s more complex - cyclical - than that. Just as the earth turns through its seasons, so do we, sometimes finding ourselves in a winter we never saw coming.
Winter shows up in many forms: the loss of a loved one, the arrival of a child, or an unexpected job loss. Big or small, winters are inevitable for all of us.
In Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May reflects on her difficult times as “a season in the cold. It 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.”
Drawing wisdom from the natural world, May observes, “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through.”
My family encountered an unexpected winter just as summer approached. My brother was in a severe motorcycle crash, and our lives slowed down, centering around hospital visits and caregiving.
What do we do when winter arrives in June, when everything around us is blooming, yet we feel buried under a blanket of snow?
Like trees, we adapted. We shed what we didn’t need, deepened our roots, and quietly prepared for the eventual return of spring. Each of us wintered in our own way alongside my brother. I paused new work projects, focused on essential parts of my business, canceled travel plans, slept more, and journaled.
And now, as the seasons turn again, I carry winter's lessons with me—the power of rest, a readiness to adapt, and a deeper understanding that even in the coldest moments, spring is on its way.
