Winter months are long – days are short, the air freezes your ears and bites your skin till it’s pink and chafed. Still, it’s beautiful to see a field of snow beyond the glass, or rooftops blanketed in white. I would miss the site if it didn’t repeat itself year after year, returning like a family member for a mandatory holiday.
And winter invites us to slow down and turn our attention in. To our interior thoughts, our interior spaces; we are all encouraged to indulge our inner introvert and embrace cozy — this is something the Scandinavians are expert at.  I happen to be Norwegian, so I am a subject matter expert in this area. 🙂
Listening to freezing rain pelt the window from the a couch, blanket wrapped around you, is a giant perk of being human in this day and age, if you are fortunate and resourceful enough to have a warm and cozy home. It would be a shame to pass up the opportunity of indulging in winter’s delights.
Among them, hot drinks, giant sweaters, snowboarding, knitting, hearty soups, adorable winter hats and … books.
Here, books fill a 10 foot tall bookshelf arranged in a neat row and then bearing stacks layered horizontally along the top of the row to reach the shelf that hangs above. There are also cabinets filled with books – some behind glass, some behind wooden doors. Topics vary – Rumi, Shakespeare, Engineering, Emergency Medicine, spell craft, the classics – Hesiod and Theogony, the Iliad, et al., modern witchcraft, Islamic poetry and philosophy, Early Gnostic Christianity, Flaubert, Jungian psychology, history, gardening books, astrology, Arthur Conant Doyle, the Dalai Lama … and it goes on…
Standing in front of them brings me feelings of comfort, happiness and security. So many hours of pleasure there in those books just waiting. All I have to do is select one and settle on a nearby couch, wrap up like a burrito in a throw blanket, crack it open, and settle in.
The weeks between Yule and Imbolg, when the first seeds will stir, is a kind of gestation time, a tide perfectly suited to looking inward to take stock of where you are. What you can be grateful for, what challenges and adventures you wish to engage when the snow finally melts.
Because it will. The days are lengthening. So savor winter – enjoy it in whatever way it speaks to you – while it lasts.
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Backyard Botanics@Miller Hill Farm 