DEEP MIDWINTER: Six Vital Lessons Your Garden Can Teach You About Real Rest

A few years ago I committed myself to try seasonal living in a bid to make living with chronic pain less of a struggle.

Seasonal living is a way of leading a more balanced and fulfilled life by matching your lifestyle with nature’s cycles. We are not part of nature, we are nature - so just as the seasons change, our inner nature shifts also.

The focus on enjoying things seasonally can really help us to appreciate the moment, celebrating the here and now, rather than longing for what has gone before or what is around the corner. It is a holistic way to live, healing mind, body and soul.

Living in tune with the seasons isn’t always easy - sometimes I get too distracted by the demands of our linear, patriarchal culture and ignore the pull of cyclical living, but once I step out of that circle and neglect the needs of my body it’s not long until I intuitively step back into nature’s rhythm.

And a wonderful thing about seasonal living is that the wheel of the year just keeps on turning no matter what ‘mistakes’ you make. Each cycle you learn more, integrate more, understand more, become more aligned to how you are meant to live your life.

In this last month of winter, and the shortest of the year, I have been reflecting a lot on what I have learned from this season of cold and dark days. As winter is losing its grip I realise that I have come to love her deeply, that in this last orbit around the sun her lessons have lodged further into my core than before.

I have spent a lot of time observing and experiencing my winter garden during the first two months of 2022 and there are six ‘lessons’ that have matured in me during this season of rest. I don’t feel that nature has educated me so much, as reminded me, of these lessons. It is like I always knew these secrets but had forgotten them. Like seasonal living is a kind of remembering of how my ancestral women lived. And I’m not only excited to find out what I remember during this next orbit around the sun, but to also integrate these rememberings into the blueprint of my life.

LESSON ONE

Rest is in our DNA

Winter is the time to rest, restore, and replenish, conserving our energies to protect us from the challenges of cold weather, dark days, and long nights. Outdoors, small animals are asleep below the hedgerows, and in our gardens hedgehogs are hibernating, nestled in piles of leaves, frogs sleeping in the mud at the bottom of ponds, bats roosting in trees and disused buildings, while insects are overwintering under logs and rocks.

Whilst not being hibernators, we humans are also hardwired to be drawn to obey winter’s demands to slow down and modify the rhythm of our lives to mirror the pace of the season. Our metabolisms intuitively slow down and this human version of hibernation is built into our DNA.

So, it is ironic that just as we receive the first call to hunker down and embrace solitude we usually find ourselves caught up in the hectic whirl of Advent and preparations for Christmas. Then as December draws to a close, when we should be slowing down the pace of living, we usually find ourselves hurtling into January full-charge at new year goals and resolutions.

In the short, dark days of January, while the natural world instinctively surrenders to deep rest, we, instead of allowing ourselves to move in harmony with this rhythm, direct our energies outwards instead of inwards.

Often the biggest barrier to resting is ourselves. We say we don’t have enough time to rest, we have too much to do and, if we do take time to rest, we end up feeling guilty. Our self-worth is often linked to how much we can achieve and accomplish, but could it be that by ignoring our natural instinct to move in harmony with the slow rhythm of the season and to embrace winter as a refuge, we are negatively impacting our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health?

Seasonal living, requires us, as women, to reconnect to our cyclical nature, which can be difficult in this linear world that holds productivity in such high esteem. And to do so, we need to accept that rest is an vital nutrient, not a weakness. To remember that rest is written in our DNA.

LESSON TWO

There is beauty in decay

January represents a passage of letting go of the old and stepping across the threshold into the new. ‘Out with the old, and in with the new’ - it’s a familiar New Year’s saying, but have we been too quick to purge, leave things behind, to start afresh as soon as the clock strikes midnight on 31st December?

In the winter garden we might think we just see mud and decay, but if we look closer we may see a mass of dead leaves providing shelter to hibernating creatures, while the nourishment of berries and seed heads support a diversity of wildlife. For these advantages we should resist the urge to clear old, dead growth in the garden. Tidy doesn’t equal pretty - it often equals sterility. As well as providing welcome nourishment and shelter to our garden visitors, a winter garden is beautiful in its starkness, holding the seeds and eggs of a new life.

Personally, in our own lives, we must also resist the urge to clear away the old too soon. Should we sit with our decay a little longer before deciding what to purge? There may be beauty in our decay, it may still be life-giving - feeding our next cycle of plans and dreams. 

LESSON THREE

Direct energy inwards

In January it can be easy to think that everything is dead. In the depths of winter, when leafless trees stand skeletal against a stark backdrop of grey sky, to be mistaken in the belief that nothing is growing.

Life in the garden may no longer be tangibly visible, but what lies beneath? Nature’s energy has gone underground and there is unseen life stirring beneath us. There may not be visible signs of growth but, suspended below the soil, the roots of many plants are getting ready for the growth season to come.

This is the time for introverted, inwards energy, to build up our reserves so that we have enough to bloom come spring. Just look at those tiny shoots breaking through the frosty ground and think of all the promise contained within.

LESSON FOUR

Nature never hurries

“Nature never hurries, atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work”.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

New Year is often billed as a period of action, commitment, and self-improvement but what is the rush? In truth, in February, we should still be cautious with our energy and resist the urge to emerge too soon. In the garden, shoots are tentatively appearing but frosts and snow may still come. If we can honour winter and live at a slower pace than the rest of the year, easing ourselves into the year instead of straining towards challenging and unrealistic resolutions, we will be stronger come spring.

LESSON FIVE

Preparation and maintenance

The garden may be bare, but there are still jobs to be done - weeding, mulching the soil, preparing flower and vegetable beds, cleaning pots, and oiling tools. This is a time for preparation and maintenance.

This is a time for us to make plans, asking what and how do I want to grow this year? It is a time for us to mulch and feed our earth, nurturing our plans for new growth in spring. In this time of recuperation, as we build up our energy reserves, we must also carry out maintenance and preparation so that, when spring arrives, we are ready to hit the ground running.

LESSON SIX

Let the seasons be your compass

As we approach the transition between winter and spring, we can feel and embrace the change in energy from inwards to outwards.

Being active, productive, and outgoing during spring and summer, but quiet, still, reflective, and introverted during autumn and winter, gives us a long-lasting sense of balance, harmony, and physical, mental and emotional stability.

Allowing ourselves to move in harmony with the rhythms of nature, the wheel of the year can continue to be our compass as we journey through all the seasons to come.