“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.” ― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

What transformations do you wish to set in motion with the coming of winter? In this generative workshop we’ll breath, vision, and write together, listening to the sacred knowledge shared by the world around us and to the often-unheard wisdom already present in our own bodies and spirits. With the coming of darkness, what needs to rest and be restored? What outgrown structures and patterns are you ready to compost, providing fuel for the projects you will dream in the cold months ahead? We’ll prepare together by building writing practices that will carry us through winter.

Connecting with the natural world can provide a wellspring of knowledge and inspiration, enabling us to (re)discover strategies for living in the world, to grieve and heal after loss, and realign our thinking toward kinship, community, and sustainability. This session will focus on writing and reflective practices to find guidance and meaningful connection as we move into winter in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ll learn from the more-than-human beings (plants, animals, weathers) with which we share space and collaborate with them and each other in this generative workshop. All ages and all genres welcome.