Hibernating, Books on Winter

Living in Season
The official newsletter of the School of the Seasons
Volume 1, number 19
December 1, 2003, Bona Dea

Contents

Welcome
December Calendar is Up!
Update: Adjusting Seasonal Goals
Living in Season: Hibernating
In the Library: Books on Winter
Advent of Advent: 13 Cookies & the Advent Sunwheel
Current Offerings: Winter Correspondence Course
New Holiday Packet: Midwinter
Copyright
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Welcome
Welcome to my periodical newsletter featuring ideas for bringing the beauty of the current season into your life. And a special welcome to the many new subscribers from Beliefnet. Please forward this newsletter if you enjoy it.

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December Calendar is up!
Check out all the holiday customs, saints and deities you can celebrate at our December calendar.

Update: Adjusting Seasonal Goals
I'm disappointed that I didn't accomplish my goal of writing 50,000 words during the month of November to become a winner in the National Novel Writing Month contest. I was doing fine, writing 1,666 words a day until I got a cold near the end of the month. I thought I might catch up during Thanksgiving but I got swept up instead in a whirl of social and familial obligations — didn't even get those photos in the album like I suggested in my last newsletter.

I also missed the first Sunday in Advent and my usual gathering of the winter evergreens to make my Advent wreath. But I'm not too upset about not achieving my goals. After all, I design these tasks to help me create the life I want to live.

I did write 45,000 words on my new novel during November and that's more than I've ever written in such a short time. I think the novel will clean up nicely but I won't know for sure until January. I'm putting it away to incubate for a month while I focus on School of the Seasons writing: the Midwinter packet and ideas for revising and expanding my current offerings. If you have any ideas about what you would like to see me offer in the new year, let me know.

Living in Season: Hibernating

No animal, according to the rules of animal etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter. All are sleepy — some actually asleep. All are weather-bound, more or less; and all are resting from arduous days and nights, during which every muscle in them has been severely tested, and every energy kept at full stretch.
— Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Every winter, I spend time reassuring my friends that it's OK to hibernate. One friend says, with distress, "I've got to stop eating. I'm gaining so much weight." I reply, "It's natural to put on weight for the winter. We're animals. You need the stored fat to get you through the time when fresh food is scarce." My daughter complains about how much she's sleeping. Although I know that for some people lower levels of sunshine trigger depression, I also know that it's natural to sleep more during the winter. When humans were more dependent upon natural light, people slept during most of the hours of darkness. It's a good way to keep warm and to conserve calories.

When you live your life close to nature, there's not a to do outside during the winter. The native peoples of Southeastern Alaska left their camps along the rivers where they fished during the summer and returned to inland villages for the winter. The women wove the grasses they had gathered in early spring into baskets and the men carved wood.

Winter is the traditional time for story-telling in many cultures. Except for certain ceremonial occasions, the ancient Celts told stories only at night and only in the winter. To me, winter is the best time for reading and writing. I love curling up under a blanket beside a fire (or, in my case, the radiator) with a good book.

The indoor-directed attitude of winter also gives me permission to do creative projects. Besides the obvious holiday crafts (ornaments of bakers clay, thirteen kinds of Yule cookies), I always feel the impulse to sew during the winter. Perhaps this is bred into my bones as a human.

Of course, life in the modern world does not encourage hibernation. We can shop and do business throughout the night, thanks to electricity. We are expected to work eight hours a day, even if it's dark when we arrive and dark when we leave. Then on top of this, winter is the holiday season, when we're supposed to be constantly shopping and partying. No wonder winter is the most difficult season for most people. The demands of the culture are contrary to those of nature.

Over the years, I've learned to trust my natural impulse to hibernateduring the winter. Luckily my work schedule, since it revolves around teaching, comes to a natural break in the depths of winter, so I'm not working as many hours. I choose one (maybe two) parties to attend and I don't go shopping.

In the Library: Books on Winter

Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Edited by Gary Schmidt & Susan M Felch,
Skylight Paths Publishing 2003

Ah! Thanks to Amy, who alerted me to the existence of this book, and the kind folks at Skylight Paths who sent me a review copy, I'm thoroughly enjoying these wintry poems and essays while luxuriating in a hot bath late at night. This book would be a great gift for anyone who loves good writing, especially good nature writing. Besides being delicious to read, it's also beautifully designed, with striking black and white illustrations of pine needles and cones created by Barry Moser and stiff side flaps that you can use as a bookmark while you read. The editors chose selections from Basho, Annie Dillard, Jane Kenyon, Thoreau, Jamaica Kincaid, Kathleen Norris and other writers whose names you might not recognize-in fact, one of the things I'm enjoying most is finding new writers to love, like Donald Hall who, while describing those who love darkness, produced this memorable line "We are partly tuber, partly bear." This book looks at the dark side of winter, its desolation and death, as well as the light. The editors quote Lancelot Andrewes , who knew that the "seasons are established for spiritual, not merely physical needs." We need the purity and quiet of winter as much as we need the abundance of summer.

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival
Bernd Heinrich, Harper Collins 2003

I got this one from the library but it's also a pleasure to read. Great clear writing about the way bears, bees, birds, beavers and all sorts of other creatures survive harsh winters in the Maine woods where the naturalist author observes them. I learned the difference between hibernation, brumation and torpor, how ravens behave in a flock, how snowy owls find mice under several feet of snow and much more.

Wintergreen: Listening to the Land's Heart
by Robert Michael Pyle, Houghton Mifflin 1986

Another book I got from the library, offering another vision of winter. Where Heinrich's writing is crisp, clear and dry like Maine snow, Pyle's writing drips and oozes with fancy adjectives and lively verbs like the moss festooning the trees in the rainy Northwest. Pyle lives in the Willapa hills, the southwest corner of Washington state, and one which I have passed through many times on my way to my favorite beach retreat. Pyle's view of the natural world is gentler too. Whereas Heinrich provides brutal details of the struggle for survival that takes place in winter, the big enemies in Pyle's world are the clear-cuts and decay, rot and senescence.

The Advent of Advent
Advent has begun but if you don't mind a late start or want to
get an early start for next year, you might be interested in:.

The Advent Sunwheel, Helen Farias's collection of four tales of the Scandinavian winter deities, appropriate for reading at Advent gatherings, along with recipes and other ideas for celebrating Advent. $12 plus $2 shipping & handling; allow 10 days for delivery. No email version available. Sorry! Visit our Store to order.

It was Helen Farias who told me that it is traditional to bake Thirteen different kinds of cookies during the Christmas season, a charge I try to carry out by making three different cookies each week of Advent. You can order my little book of recipes for 13 Traditional Winter Holiday Cookies through our store. $6 plus $2 for shipping and handling; allow 10 days for delivery. No email version available. Sorry!

New Holiday Packet: Midwinter
I am currently hard at work on the Midwinter Holiday packet which includes the history of various Midwinter holidays
including Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, Hanukkah, Yule
and Christmas. Plus songs, recipes, crafts and winter
plant lore. It will be ready for shipping via email on
Sunday night, December 7 and via regular mail on
Monday, December 8. Order a copy now through our store.

Current Offerings: Winter Correspondence Course
In the School of the Seasons, winter is rapidly approaching, since I use the old British reckoning of the seasons in which winter begins on November 1st, with Samhain. If you're interested in signing up for the Winter correspondence course, order now to get your materials before Winter begins. Visit our Store to order.

Copyright
Copyright ©Waverly Fitzgerald 2003.
All rights reserved. You may reprint material from Living in Season in other electronic or print publications as long as you credit me and provide a link to: http://www.schooloftheseasons.com. Please send me a copy of the publication.

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