Winter: A good time for writing.
I have a long-held interest in Amerindian culture, particularly traditions of making: masks, tools, jewellery, stories.
For people who live in harmony with the earth’s cycles, winter is a time for turning inward, for intense creativity, for gathering around the fire, sewing and shaping and dreaming and telling stories.
Since I moved back to North Yorkshire, I find myself in greater synchrony with the seasons. Winter has become an increasingly fertile time for me. I find myself thinking about painting walls, making poems and, yes, even knitting more ‘wild tea cosies.’
I know that many people do not like this time of year, the idea of the evenings drawing in, the days shortening. But when you think about all the possibilities of those longer winter evenings, it can be very exciting.
I found this poem by Emily Dickinson yesterday:
‘Winter under cultivation
Is as arable as spring.’
In perfect Dickinson fashion, those two little lines speak everything that I’ve been trying to say so far, rather more clumsily, in this blog post.
