Finding Beauty and Magic in Midwinter
I used to dread winter. On Cape Cod, midwinter to spring was an off-season slog of muddy slush, dull skies, and duller moods. In Northern Maine, where I went to college, winter was a punishing season of piercing subzero temperatures, seemingly endless darkness, and seasonal affective disorder.
While winter is still challenging, I’ve spent years exploring the beauty and mystery of the darkest time of the year. Mythology, magic, nature, spirituality, history, and my heritage have given me a personal, meaningful connection with winter that makes it peaceful, tolerable, and enjoyable.
Winter is home to some of the most beautiful sabbats and holy days – the solstice, Sankta Lucia Day, Christmas, the lunar and Gregorian new years, Imbolc, Saturnalia, Lupercalia. The celebrations of light and acceptance of darkness echo our ancestors’ respect for the earth: a reverence for all aspects of our world and ourselves.
In winter, I get to rest. In the silence of the snowy woods, I am not pushed or pulled, pressured or forced. The cold compels me, certainly, but in ways that feel natural. It doesn’t test my anxiety – it coaxes me back to my primal self, my body’s needs, my heart’s desires. My rhythms sync with the earth’s rhythms.
When I think of winter, I see a world of peaceful ease, a palette of blues, whites, greys, dull greens, and primordial black. Winter is the pause between exhale and inhale, the lull between heartbeats, an ancient promise of rest and renewal.
In winter, things feel simpler. I wake up to the snowfall, reassuring me that I can stay home and stay cozy. All I need to do is care for my home, tend to my land, and return to the warmth of the indoors. I feel called to go outside and spend time with nature, but I am never forced to go or stay anywhere.
In a world where I am constantly asked to stretch myself too thin, work too much, try too hard, winter accepts me just the way I am. In the peace, silence, and simplicity of winter, I am good enough. And among all the vast achievements and accolades of humanity, I think that’s all we really want.
