originally written november 2021. edited january 2025.
a reflection on winter + the elemental spirit of water
In earth-based spirituality, nature in all of its forms provides guidance, wisdom, and healing. The seasons, elements, animals, plants and the weather all provide medicine and healing.
winter₊˚｡⋆❄️
“Winter is a time of inner quiet that puts us at the wellspring of will and ambition. While nature sleeps, the rain and snow fill the Earth’s reservoirs with water, the fluid of life. Our kidneys and bladder control the fluids that keep body, mind, and spirit flowing. Winter enables us to know fear and awe. “1
Winter is a time for us to mirror nature and embrace stillness. To rest and nourish our bodies. To experience all that quietness and peace have to offer our soul.
After experiencing the death and grief of autumn, winter is a time to go inward and tap into the lessons our emotions have to offer. Much like water, our emotions are the flow of energy— energy in motion = e-motion.
During winter, many people feel as though they become engulfed by their emotions and have the urge to rest for long periods of time. Unfortunately because of the way our society has been influenced by things like capitalism, we do not value the importance of rest. We treat our bodies like machines that need to be constantly ‘productive’— producing something we can physically see the materialization of, or trading our physical and mental labor for a wage to pay bills and debts.
We ignore the messages and lessons of our emotions by attempting to appear as though happy is the only acceptable human emotion. We ignore our urge to rest. We have made it taboo to honestly experience our emotions as the teachers they are and take the time to simply do nothing but rest.
Rest, sadness, crying, and stillness are all natural responses to the change of season. We are not independent of nature. No matter how advanced Western science and technology becomes, we cannot escape the millions of years that the human body lived in sync with the cycles of nature —as we should.
medicine of winter
I’m not saying to just lay in bed for three long months and wallow away in your sorrow. We should move in rhythm with winter; take the time to have peaceful moments of quiet. Like the silent moments of nature when the animals have gathered food and are quietly taking shelter.
Set aside time for yourself so that you can be self-reflective and listen to the messages and lessons your emotions are communicating. Like the snowfall that has accumulated on the ground and must take its time to melt. Emotions that have been stagnant and solidified into energetic emotional blockages must be transmuted into a fluid that can be filtered and eliminated from obstructing the flow of our vital energy.
When there is a heavy snowfall we shutdown or delay daily operations because the accumulated snow has caused us to abstain from movement. We take shelter and prepare for how much snow may accumulate with fear and respect of Nature, because icy conditions can instantly and beyond our control redirect us in a different direction. In order to get back to life as we know it, we must take the time to move the heavy snow and allow the ice to melt. It is ill-advised to ignore the dangerous conditions.
obstructing flow
Not only is rest important, but so is movement. If we do not move heavily accumulated snow, or trauma, it will bury us. As the snow melts into water it moves and flows like tears from our eyes.
Like the kidneys and bladder in our body that function to remove toxins, waste, and excess water. We cannot hold water in our bladder forever because if we do we will give ourselves urinary tract, bladder, and kidney infections because we decided to hold onto our toxins; and ignore the communication that it was time to eliminate our bladder. A bladder is a reservoir of water. The element of Water represents emotions.
Stagnant water breeds dis-ease. Similarly, our own stagnation and refusal to acknowledge our emotions can lead to more severe emotional and mental dis-order. If we obstruct the flow of emotions by attempting to hold them in we will eventually have an emotional outburst, like embarrassingly releasing your bladder at the wrong moment because you ignored earlier signals that you needed to release your emotions.
stagnant water
“If left to fester in the stagnant waters of the unconscious, our blindly instinctual drives and our infantile complexes (our early destructive rage, self-hate, envy, jealousy, greed, lust, etc.) have enormous power and control over us. But if they are brought into the light of day, into the light of consciousness and held there, they begin to lose their strength. What we are unconscious of has a way of sneaking up behind our backs and hitting us unexpectedly. However, if we are conscious of something in us, we have a better chance of resolving it.”2
restoring flow
Physical movement like intentional stretching, yoga, mindful walking, and dancing can help move stagnant energy and improve the flow of emotions.
Energy healing like acupuncture, lymphatic and other types of massages, and reiki can also initiate the flow of stagnant energy.
Creativity can help with allowing stagnant and repressed energy to flow through your subconscious mind. Writing, painting, drawing, songwriting, playing an instrument, dancing, etc.
Meditation also teaches us how to make space for our emotions to communicate with us. In meditation, you can sit with your emotions and create an open line of communication to receive the lessons and messages your emotions have to communicate. We begin to recognize our emotions as teachers. Emotions are not something that we are powerlessly being victimized by. If we take the time to analyze our emotions in the light of consciousness we can transmute our suffering and begin to heal.
rest
Rest is important for healing and proper functioning of the body. Feeling the urge to slow down and rest more during winter is perfectly okay. There are more hours of darkness than there is sunlight. It would make sense that we should sleep more during winter. Allowing our body time to rest, rejuvenate, and heal for a few months before spring returns and we have the urge to spend more time outdoors and start life anew. When doing deep emotional healing it is so very important to allow for periods of rest and integration.
S O U R C E S
- Cowan, Eliot. Plant Spirit Medicine: A Journey into the Healing Wisdom of Plants. 2014
- Sasportas, Howard. The Gods of Change: Pain, Crisis and the Transits of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. 1989
keni sekhem 