Winter

Advent 2025 ~ Light

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Week 3 — Light

As Winterdark quickly approaches, I am, as ever, drawn to the light. Candlelight, twinkling lights, soft lamps. I want light but not harsh light. Not light that shocks the senses but, rather, I want light that warms you and invites you gently in to sit, rest, stay for a while. Light should gather you in, hold you close, and soothe the jagged, ragged edges caused by stress and anxiety and care.

When I am scared, I turn on the lights. When I am weary-worn, then I sidle up to the softest of it, to the candle flames and twinkling Christmas-tree glow. To the light of nostalgic cartoons and movies that remind me “what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown”.

As we head into the long dark that will give way to the growing day, I pray that you find your light this season—the light that will soothe your soul and warm your weary self. You are ever loved, dear one. May your Winterdark be blest as we bend toward the light.

Advent 2025 ~ Quiet

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Advent 2025

Week 1 ~ Quiet

December is only a week old, and Winter has arrived to wrap her frigid arms around our state. We have had a couple significant snowfalls already, with icy patches still left over from Monday night’s snow. And I am loving every moment of it!

Twenty-five years ago this winter, I discovered that there is no quiet so profound as that of snowfall and a world covered with a fresh, white blanket. I walked my college campus in the fluttery snowfall, astounded at how silent everything had become, no sound except for the crunch of my boots as I made my mark on a fresh, new world. I saw snow for the first time when I was nine years old, but that was all excitement, novelty, and play. I know for a fact that I didn’t appreciate this particularly beautiful aspect of winter at that time. Now, whenever the snow is falling, I try to step out onto the porch or into the doorway to listen as it hushes the world. I listen as it muffles the rush, quiets the hustle, and silences the busyness. We are forced to slow our cars, our steps, our plans. When we slow down, we can also quiet down.

I love the deep emptiness of snowfall-quiet, like the whole world is asleep and I alone am awake to witness its secret beauty. It softens the world, smoothing the rough edges and lines into graceful curves. The snow seems to gentle the harshness, reflecting even the light pollution back into the darkness in a starlight blue so we can see even in what should be the deepest of shadows. And isn’t that what we all need most in this season? Softness and light, gentleness and moments of stillness? Sometimes it makes me wonder if the “silent night” the songwriter describes is not indeed a night of moonlit snowfall.

In that snowy quiet, I am reminded that we are given a gift–the gift of Presence, where we are welcomed into Jesus’s arms and lap. A place of rest, reassurance, and recovery in the hollow of His presence and memory. That silent space where His love softens the edges of existence. As we move further into this Advent and winter season, may we slow down and submerge into the quiet. May we let it soften our moments, calm the crazy, and hold the precious close. Stand in the quiet, sink into the silence, and slow the rush. Maybe snowfall-quiet is here just so we can remember what it means to exist in heavenly peace.

Embracing the Season

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In December of 2024, and then revisited on the January 24, 2025, edition, All Things Considered profiled Kari Leibowitz and her study of the “wintertime mindset”. Fascinated by the data that pointed to countries at higher latitudes having fewer instances of seasonal depression during the winter, Leibowitz decided to see for herself. Relocating to the Arctic Circle in Norway, she spent a long, dark, cold winter in a deep-dive study of just what it was that produced the positive outlook of these Norwegians, as well as having observed and researched in Scandinavia and northern Japan, among other locations. Through her studies over the last decade, Leibowitz determined that winter can be “cozy, magical, and refreshing” if we will orient ourselves towards the positive aspects of it, rather than viewing winter as a season to be merely endured.

I am honestly in the middle of the best winter of my life. As fall began to wind down last year, I found something in my soul yearning for winter, for the cold, for the barren dormancy, and especially for the profound quiet of snowfall. I determined, at some unconscious point, that I was going to enjoy my wintering this year. So far, we have gotten a fair amount of snow here in my state, and, while my hips and back hate me when I have to shovel it, I have still enjoyed it immensely. The beauty of its falling, the muffling quality of its blanket outside, and how it obliterates all the blemishes, rendering the world a clean, blank slate for a while. I have opened my blinds to watch the snowglobe world outside as it falls, wrapped in cozy blankets and warmed by my fireplace.

I have loved it when it has been so very cold outside that the very air itself seemed to sparkle. I have covered my home with light — candles and strings of sparkling bulbs–to combat the long winter dark outside. The tree will remain up for the remainder of the season, reflecting joy in its twinkle and glow.

I have wrapped myself in warm sweaters, comfy hoodies, softs socks, and thick leggings, dressings for the cold that will also keep me cozy within if the heating struggles against the might of the icy air without. I am enjoying layers of skirts, knit, and boots, living out my Outlander-inspired dreams.

I have thoroughly embraced Winter this year, and I am loving it. I am loving this low-energy season of life, enjoying leaning into the rest and quiet and calm of my blankets, books, coffee, and cat. I am purposefully building relaxation and dormancy into my winter life, holding the principles of hygge (Denmark) and mys (Sweden) close to my heart.

I am adoring Winter and finding it refreshing in ways that I had not expected. For example, my appetite for books and stories (which has always been healthy) has skyrocketed. I am experiencing such joy in the anticipation and eagerness to sit down to read every day. I have stocked up candles in all my favorite scents, the ones that send my body and mind instantly into relax mode. Those scents transition me back into my sense of home and cozy belonging, knowing that I am safe in my little hobbit hole and the rest of the world can wait until tomorrow.

So, if you’ll excuse me, my blankets and books are calling.

If you’d like to know more about Kari Leibowitz’s studies, you can check out her book How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days.

Stark Bright Moments in the Snow

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Late this morning, the snow began to fall. We have not had a proper snowfall this winter and today seemed desperate to make up for that. It has been snowing for close to 8 hours while the world has transformed. And quieted.

I know I have written before about the profound silence of snowfall and the peace that it brings me. Today, when I got home with my kiddo, I let them thump their way upstairs while I took my sweet time divesting myself of my things. When I heard their bedroom door shut and knew my husband to also be safely ensconced in his office, I pulled my arm warmers back on, wrapped up in a fleece shawl, and slipped out the front door to sit on our porch to watch the snow fall.

As I sat there, I let the silence of the snow wrap around me. After hours, days, a week of words and movement and change and work, I deeply needed silence. Even if just for a few moments. So I sat very still and watched my little neighborhood become Narnia as the outside lamps and lights of the houses turned on amidst the swirling snow. Snowfalls can make the familiar magical, the rush slower, the busy calmer. I welcomed it, breathed it in.

I sat there until my fingers grew cold beneath my shawl and the wool of my arm-warmers. But, before I could move to go inside, I was surprised by a flash of color through the white. Bright red. A cardinal. Then another shot by to join the first in the neighbors’ tree, shaking the snow from branch to ground as they hopped from limb to limb.

I smiled to myself and could not help but think, a story line unfurling in my mind like the runner on a dining room table. “Cardinals love the snow. They love to splash and flap in it, washing their ruby feathers until they shine and their color glows bright against the stark white. They are one of Winter’s favorite ornaments.”

Drawn to the Small Light (Advent 2023)

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Several years ago, I began doing weekly writings specifically for Advent, and I really enjoyed what came to feel like a holy practice in the process of it. However, I have not felt led in that direction this year. Instead, I find that I have a deep calling and draw towards candles in this darkening fall and oncoming winter.

I have artificial candles on my porch, on my staircase, on the mantle in the living room, all timed to turn on as the sun goes down. I light real, scented candles as I sit in the living room, filling the downstairs of my house with the aroma of cranberries, apples, and spices and my soul with the peace that accompanies such scents and their attached memories. Even as I grade assessment and essays, I can be wrapped in this sensory comfort of light and scent.

I long for candles’ flicker, giving softening, golden light to a world that is often so very harsh. I want their gentleness, their ability to move with changes in the air. The flames waver and move with the current changes but do not go out unless the air is overly-harsh or forceful. I love a candle’s warmth, its taking-in of oxygen and giving-back of heat.

I love writing with firelight splashing over the pages of my notebook or journal. It feels as though the warmth of the flame is transferred to my pen, making my writing softer, kinder, perhaps more empathetic.

As I move through this Advent and Christmas season, I think I want to be more like a candle flame: giving light, warmth, and comfort where I can. I do not have to blaze and be so big as to be seen by and serve everyone. I can be small and still do good, for myself and others.

I may not reach all of my students, but I may be of comfort and support to one.

I may not get Christmas cards to everyone but I might just send one to someone who deeply needs the reminder that they are cared for.

I may not be able to find the “right” gift, but I may be able to gift my time and attention to a dear one at the right time.

I can be small and still be good. And so can you, Dear Reader. I love seeing your beautiful candle light.

Winter’s Restorative Quiet

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Recent snowy weather lined up with the timing for our annual big winter storm, and, honestly, I had been looking forward to it. I have come to love those days of forced slowing down, forced quietude. When Winter settles its blanket heavily over everyone and everything, keeping us in and still.

Winter has a quality of serenity all its own. There is a profundity to winter-quiet, with all the discernible and the subsonic buzz of the growing and harvesting seasons dampened and silenced. It’s a clear sort of quiet instead of a heavy one, as if something has been released instead of taken on. That silence is something I could listen to for minutes at a time, just standing in the cold and soaking the calm into my hurried, harried soul.

I am reaching for quiet in these days of 2023. Perhaps my word for the year has snuck up on me, in fact. But, yes, I have found myself reaching for it, both physically and otherwise. I am rediscovering the joy of a seat, a blanket, a good cup of coffee, and a book. I am reacquainting myself with my pen and a new journal. I am reaching for lulled, slowed moments over my lunch time. I am longing for soft silence. I feel it in my sigh when I step into my home at the end of the day and in the longing glances I cast towards my couch.

I feel it in the loveliness of my soul’s calm in the soft ambiance of rain falling outside, which I crack open the patio door to listen to. I can feel it in the warmth of a fireplace at my back, in my smile at finishing a book, something that has been painfully infrequent in recent years.

My hands are stretched out for quiet this year. Often with repose comes rest, but rest only is not what I find I am wanting. I am desperate for stillness and peace, for the space to let my imagination roam and bloom. I want the stillness of hours, of comfort, of escape, of heart-tending. So I shall sink into winter-quiet and soak it into my bones before the world stirs and wakes again. Though I cannot hibernate, I can certainly engaged in wintering.

Pausing to Rest

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As I tipped the trash bag into the hopper and let the lid fall, I paused on my shuffle back to the house over the icy drive and just stood still. I let the silence of the winter night, the temperature rapidly dropping, settle over me and just…rested in it for a long moment.

Have you ever listened to the world freeze over? I did. I could hear the creak of branches under the weight of the freezing snow and the muted boom of expanding ice birthing cracks and potential potholes in the streets. My eyelashes sparkled with shimmering snowflakes that fluttered to spangle the black of my sweater as they swirled and winked in the arc of light cast by the fixture beside the backdoor.

I remembered a night similar to this, almost twenty years ago, when I tripped merrily home from a campus formal. I recalled the dusting of snow on the sidewalk glinting like fairy dust under my feet and the hem of my gown in the blue moonlight and how beautiful I felt in that moment. Smiling at the memory, I just stood there, drinking the peace of a winter night, its stillness, its deep, slow breathing, and its call to rest.

Then the single-digit-chill wind decided I needed a nudge back to reality and gusted up to cajole me on into the house. “Before the cold catches up to you…” it seemed to whisper, dusting one last sparkle of snowflakes over me before I turned to go inside.

A moment’s rest can be just what you need, especially when it leaves you with a pleasant little shiver.

The Work of the Dark

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“Winter reminds us that everyone and everything needs some quiet time.” – Katrina Mayer

Tonight will be the longest night of the year. The long dark while the world makes its turn and tilt towards the light again. Winterdark. I always feel as though I want to mark this night, the beginning of Winter but, at the same time, the eventual advent of Spring and green and warmth. I have no Yule log, my greenery isn’t real. How can I mark the beginning of Winterdark? Moreover, some might ask, why would I want to?

I want to because there is work to be done in the dark, in the cold, and in the barrenness that Winter brings. I have been reading a great deal about the work of Winter. The need for the silence, the stillness, and the bleakness of the season. As a woman raised in perpetual light (ie, the Caribbean) for the first half of my life, this weighs heaviest on me about Winter of all its traits: the darkness. Rising in the dark, driving to work in the dark, being inside during whatever wan light comes during the day, and then, if I stay too late, driving home in the darkness once again. It is often very hard to think of that darkness, that silence, that bleakness as necessary, never mind thinking of it as good. But it is good. 

Just like the trees, the grass, and other plants, we need a pause in life. Growth cannot be continuous; rest is needed. Winterdark is a time for slowing, for pausing, for quieting down. Life doesn’t stop, of course, no. Not at all, but the long dark can remind us of our need for slowness, for catching our breath, and letting our pulse relax for a bit. I am not the best at slowing, pausing, and resting. The past few weeks have been a flurry of must-do’s in order to finish the school semester and all that comes with it before I left the building yesterday. And then there was the Christmas and birthday prep and officially moving my daughter into her new room upstairs. No…I don’t do “slowing down” very well. But I want to.

This Winter, I want to re-learn how to rest and how to embrace the slow and the quiet. I want to learn the work of Winter, the work of the dark, and the restorative properties of dormancy. I want to re-learn quiet. I want to re-learn care. I want to re-learn peace. Beginning tonight with Winterdark, I want to reclaim this season.

Tonight, after the bustle of the day, I will sit, bundled and warm, with husband, mother, and daughter. Then, later, with book and journal and pen. I will sit in the glow of my Christmas tree when the house is finally calm and quiet. I will reclaim and embrace silence and stillness, the work of Winter and the long dark as they begin.

Will you join me?


Moments in Magical Modernity: V

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V.

Winter can be hard on beings who draw their power from the warmer aspects of Nature but many have developed coping mechanisms akin to those who deal with SAD. Dryads’ homes are often filled with warm light and UV lamps/bulbs to help warm them through the months. The satyr-run brewery has daily specials on warm, sit-in-your-belly meads and ales throughout the entirety of the winter season. And the Hollow keeps its summer-stoke fireplace going constantly; you’ll even see some dryads start to blossom under its enchanted light.

The world needs Winter, Nature its rest, and, with it, Winter brings its own particular brand of Magic. Frostlings and winterbroods make sure the sidewalks stay safe and those who work at the local DOT make sure roads stay passable and clear with a little charm here and a special mixture there  (not salt, though. We did away with that a long time ago. Too corrosive and harmful.) They do not tamper with the Weather itself but rather merely mitigate its results. Ponds freeze solid for skating. There’s an extra diamine shimmer on the morning and moonlit snowfalls, courtesy of local creative frost fairies. Holiday pictures taken out of doors are always perfect if set up/arranged ahead of time. Snowflakes stay frozen in mittened hands long enough for their myriad shapes to be inspected. Sleds whoosh along only to avoid obstacles and thunk safely into snowbanks. Fairies’ wings sparkle with snowdust, that subtle, delicate shimmer that is all but undetectable without the sun filtering through the sky just so on an icy day.

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Jessamin, the frost fairy barista, always perks up immensely and helps Kingsley whip up all kinds of wintry treats and special drinks for the Hollow. A favorite is the Winter Apple—a spiced cider that starts warm and then, at some point between tongue and tummy, gives you the most delicious sweetness of a late fall apple just touched through with frosty cold. You can positively see the bright red of the apple glowing beneath its icy dusting.

In the winter, Sophie always comes around more often and stays for longer despite her always-busy schedule, basking in the hominess of the Hollow and its rejuvenating warmth. Humans like her linger longer over their coffees and pastries, slowing down a bit from the frenzy of life. They seem to take in more, feel like they notice and think more. In Winter, the world grows slower, steadier, for human and magical being alike. But Winter is not without its own brand of Magic, if one will simply slow down with it enough to see its beauty.

 

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The Truth on Earth, Not in the Air

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It’s April and it smells like Christmas outside. It’s that cold, shimmering scent, one that promises things to come. I suppose, in that sense, Christmas and spring are similar in nature. Almost like the world is holding its breath, waiting for something. The air is cold and crisp, too much so for April for my tastes, but this is Indiana, after all. The grass is green, the trees are starting to shed their buds and press forth with leaves, albeit reluctantly, and so nature assures us of what the weather would belie:

Winter is done.

Spring is coming.

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