A winter’s tale
It is early November and I am cosied up by the wood burning stove, looking out at a subdued sky. It is not quite 5pm and the light has the pixilated quality of a fading day. I have a dawning remembrance of winter’s approach, and a shift in mechanics of the day, where earlier starts are needed (but not always heeded) to make best use of the light and pale warmth of midday. This is the time to thank the hardworking annuals and clear the beds, dig up and store dahlias, prick out seedlings sown in September, mulch, plant tulip bulbs.
But it is also the time sink into dreamtime, allow the wilds of our creativity to pause and still and settle and stretch, move more slowly, eat hearty foods, blink in awe when low heavy clouds part to reveal sailor blue skies, stay indoors. There can be incongruence on the threshold of winter: the desire for longer sleeps with the need to get up early for the light, the flat feeling of waking to another cold grey day yet the joy of feeling the cold air moving through my lungs and eyes attuned to subtleties in colour.
Once I step fully into the season, this shifts into a deep appreciation for the magic of this time. Those tiny snapdragon seedlings will not make much headway over the winter months but will be growing deep strong roots underground to catapult in the spring. The tulips bulbs under the bare earth are planted in faith that, when the conditions are right, the cutting patch will be ablaze with colour in April. If we squint, look sideways or look in our mind’s eye, we can see that everything is already here, all the seasons, and that trust helps make seen the unseen.
It is time to move inwards, both in person and spirit, to bring something of the outdoors into the warmth of our homes and remind us that the rising sap of spring, although not visible, is waiting to curl our toes with its energy. Winter Wreath making is a way of doing this: to be in community, step into our stillness, nourish wellbeing, dream the world into becoming, and play with seasonal foliage.
Magical evergreens scent our fingers with resin, and show us resilience in their waxy leaves.
Everlastings catch the summer heat in their bright colour, and fill my heart with the wisdom that we can see the sun in the flower even if we can’t see the sun in the sky.
Take time to pause. Join us and lean into the winter together.
Here is a beautiful poem by the talented Alison, who attended a session last year:
A December Birth
The dilation is thirty centimetres, though vital willow boundaries could still stretch for sky, if set free; yet a mother's body knows the score.
Each breath an odyssey of decision, larch or yew, holly or wormwood, shy river reeds who hide in plain sight, demure their beauty, bucket borne.
This is as much about setting free as binding close, a matrix of sunlight and rain, fine fortune of insect, bird, or bushed bodies that made possible
our offerings of green that glut the table.
Here are our hands, drawing together the alchemy of a year's turning, fascinations of leaf and stem, seed stretch, berry whole.
Each delivery is different and miraculous, a nod to the nature of who we really are, kin to silver birch, moss lichen, soft souls, memory keepers, weaving an orbit's peace.
Alison Jones
You can read more of Ali Jones Writer here
You can book a place for mindful winter wreath making here
