Cultural Winter

This time of year I always feel so tired and sleepy, and especially on the weekends I feel like I could just stay in bed all day. I know the shorter days with less sunlight has a lot to do with it, but how does that relate historically? 

I’m pretty sure that when humans lived in caves, they probably stayed inside during the cold and snowy winter months as much as possible. They may have had to hunt periodically for meat, but plants were scarce, if they could be found at all.

Indigenous people throughout the northern latitudes spent much of their time during spring, summer and fall, preparing for winter. In the late summer and early fall, hunters - and sometimes entire families - would travel to where game was plentiful and prepare meat for packing back home, where the meat would be dried and stored for winter meals. Women and children would gather and preserve plants used for food or medicine. Inside the lodges, winter was a time to sew or repair clothing and household items, for making new arrow heads, knives or spears, for music and laughter, and for relaxing as much as possible.

Winter was also a time for storytelling. Because there was no written language among Native Americans until the early 1820s, storytelling was - and still is - a very important part of native culture. Telling stories was a way to relive adventures, events of the day, or pass down family history, culture and traditions.

Our modern culture teaches that this time of year is for alcohol, lights, shopping, overworking, over-spending and consumerism. It’s a tiring and stressful time. It’s a time for isolation and loneliness for those who have no money or family.

And yet if we look at the natural world, winter is a time for sleeping. The natural tug to go inwards as nearly all creatures are doing is strong, how can we not feel that we too, must hibernate during these cold and dark months? In actual fact winter is kind. She points us in her quiet soft way towards our inner self, towards this annual time of peace and reflection.

Winter takes away the distractions, the buzz, and presents us with the perfect time to rest our weary bodies, minds, and souls, and withdraw into a womb like love, bringing fire & light to our hearth". And then, just around the corner the new year will begin again, and like a seed planted deep in the earth, we will all rise with renewed energy once again to dance in the sunlight.