Winter • Fire on the Inside

• click here for podcast episode for your listening pleasure.

Wintering • Fire on the Inside

Winter. A quiet time of reflection and personal hibernation can feel necessary some years. We all need space to restore our nervous systems. Some of us haven't gotten space to calm and recalibrate for decades or longer.

There is a lot to digest or assimilate. Being still with myself has been challenging while worth it. Coming back to a natural seasonal rhythm Winter reminds us to care for the hearth and fire on the inside. Being still to welcome warmth and nourishment for the season.

Can ya hear me when I say I absolutely love the Winter Season. Living on our little farmstead for another full resolution around the Sun, Winter helps us feel grounded, and more settled into our living space. Moving slower in this season is the pace. Slow. Steady. Stable.

Here we enjoy the ritual of firekeeping. Warmth radiates beckoning a gathering around for awhile. Fire's scent and sound are good for the soul. Bringing the fire inside our home during the Winter, offers a tangible practical way seeing that it is the slow burn that makes it last.

Even the chores around having a fire on the inside gives back to the garden. Returning the wood ash from the transformational experience of fire to plants and trees act as a fertilizer when sprinkled sparingly.

Your Yoga practicing during the Winter months may need to bring in Sun Salutations or postures for your Solar Plexus as a way of stoking your own fire.

Winter gives me the space to stoke a slow burn, while simultaneously acting as a purification process.

Since purification is more like an inside thing, we all have experienced change in behavior, lifestyle, circles, you name it, while not changing much on the inside. However Winter is a cycle that makes space for purifying and sifting through the ashes. Returning back to the soil what remains for the next growing season.

While that is an inside job, for me it has been the hardest work to do. Making amends with my own shame, and feelings of unworthiness. Trust me when I say I haven't arrived anywhere quite yet in my process. Slowing down to the quiet crackle my hope is we can dream our reality by simple ways to stoke our own fire.

Happy Wintering. To begin well, let us end well. Give yourself compassion and grace as we Winter over this season, then cover over that with a whole bunch of patience. Namaste` lovely souls.

• click here for podcast episode for your listening pleasure.