Channeling Winter

Me in a burnt orange sweater and floral orange, yellow, green and brown scarf, smiling with my hair partway up, sitting beside Tulip who is perched and snuggling on top of an orange blanket, all in front of a window outside which you can see winter trees.

Hello winter friends, from my early-2026-getting-back-to-life moment to yours.

I always have the same false narrative come up this time of year. I take a break from mid-December to the new year, and every time I return, my brain goes, “You’re back to work! You should go from zero to sixty. Your days should immediately be full, and it should happen effortlessly.”

Some of us have work that gears back up immediately after the new year. If this is you, know that I’m here on the other end of the line encouraging you to take a sneaky break, go at your own pace, and work more slowly than corporate messaging might tell you to work, if you can and you want to.

For my kind of work, December and early January are quiet. Like me, everyone else has taken a break to sleep, be with family, eat a lot, and generally let their brains do entirely unusual things for a couple weeks.

The idea that I could return to work on Jan. 2 and the gears would already be turning is, honestly, laughable. It’d be even more laughable if I didn’t have to do a bunch of self-work every January to remind myself a) that’s unreasonable pressure to put on myself and b) my work is seasonal, not just in that I teach about the seasons, but in the way its rhythms change with the year.

That b) has been my focus this week. I have journaled, read Tarot, and spent time channeling messages from the seasons. “Winter,” I asked, “what is the best way you can support me in supporting my clients?”

Here’s the reading I did:

I found that winter is not the time to move, move, move. I know this might feel obvious in reading it, but I think about the seasons and their energies ALL the time, and I STILL feel the compulsion to move, move, move in January. Sure, it’s the gym advertisements on TV and the cultural uniformity of work being the same throughout the year, regardless of the season. But mostly, it’s my own fear that I’m doing something wrong if I don’t move, move, move.

I found clarity by turning to Winter itself. I’ve been walking outside, looking at the movement of the bare trees, smelling the cold earth.

I did my Tarot reading, and asked the seasons to help me interpret the cards.

Winter told me this: Winter is for finding clarity. Sit, mediate, vision. Release imagined boundaries. Move through restrictive rules I’ve created for myself. Become free in mind.

I received this foundational message: In winter, create the openness and possibility that is the soil the rest of the year grows from.

Winter time spent in reflection and unstructured spiritual exploration is not time wasted. It’s actually the best preparation and living that we can do.

Okay, I want to keep this short and sweet because that’s how I want all the emails in MY inbox to be right now. I’ll be back next week to talk more about People Pleasing, a theme from pre-winter-break.

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Village Witch’s Corner

Spell of the Week : 

Let the Winter tell me what it wants me to do.

Question(s) I'm asking this week:

What are my “shoulds” that could be transformed into things I actually want to do?

What I’m Listening To:

I have a few friends who are getting very into analog music listening, so this weekend I’m attending a birthday party where the host asked everyone to bring their favorite record so we can listen together.

Wheel of the year:

The light has started to grow as the days wheel by in wake of the winter solstice. The world still sleeps, but nature is never really asleep: belowground, in the roots and seeds and dirt, important gestation takes place. This is the important period when all subtle preparation happens for the upcoming growth of the year. To learn more about living in alignment with the seasons, sign up for my Patreon (free and paid options available)!