the gospel of winter: part one
inspiring sweetness
trees have been my mentors since my late teens and my whole life they’ve been my friends. a few years ago in an attempt to make the northeast winters easier, i looked to them for wisdom on how to move in what felt like such a hostile and unforgiving season. historically i had been a summer person, my body loved heat and humidity and sun, and as any good summer person, I sorta despised winter. all that dark and cold, it was unnatural. i had that whole summer vs winter thing.
but that sentiment didn’t feel right. earth’s been blessed with an axis which allows for cycles that make this whole fucking thing possible. winter, from the inception of this perfect planet, in some way, shape or form, has always been here. winter is nature.
and i’m a north easterner goddamn it— winter has always been a part of my life and is a part of me. didn’t i climb snow heaps surrounding bus poles from brooklyn’s blizzards through my 90’s childhood? running around prospect park in deep winter saving birds and testing frozen streams with sliding steps during adolescents? what happened? maybe the issue was less that i didn’t like winter than i didn’t have a cultural, let alone social framework to support me anymore with the shift to adulthood. i needed to make one. and so i took to trees— those beings who inspire and ground me when i am making new blueprints for being. in january of whatever year that was in my mid twenties, i committed to re-wintering myself starting with walks, sometimes long, sometimes short, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, in parks and woods. and stare at the trees. feel them. press my existence against theirs and ask how do you exist during this time?
well the first and most obvious thing to me was deciduous trees like maples, birches, ashes and oaks slept. their hibernation is called dormancy. their processes, primarily metabolization, slow way down. that is to say, they were resting. such a slowness that came to stillness.
from these folds the first unraveling: slow down. these last few years i’ve been brought to peace and creativity by prioritizing lulling my pace, encouraged initially, by this season. nevertheless, a tension unfolded; the pursuit of slowness contradicts expectations that not only my life, but my family’s members lives, my beloved’s lives, my community’s lives, require a constant speedy speed. witnessing trees in winter, inspired me to slow down but that exploration lead me to acknowledge our economic system is an obstacle that requires restructuring if rest were to be accessible for all. it shouldn’t be so hard to be still, but our current institution doesn’t allow slowing our pace. or for resting. but more musings on that in subsequent letters.
deeper still into trees in winter, is that over the eras, their lifespans evolved and now depend on a period of cold and dark. 250 million years ago to now, they were able to go from exclusively warm weather beings to the four seasonal folk they are today, mainly because of two adaptions— smaller water pipes to discourage bubbles in the trunk and the other, conserving sugar. for deciduous trees, this is done mainly in their body of branches and trunk. meanwhile our coniferous friends like pine, hold the sugar in their spikey leaves which is why they never loose their foliage. without winter, trees would have never been called into storing such large quantities of sap. they rely on these reserves when they haven’t got leaves and therefore cannot make food. so they store the converted energy as saccharine fluid. it is because of winter, that the northeast was the original, and continues to be the primary producer of maple syrup in the world— the only other place being certain parts of the midwest. under these cold conditions, trees were and continue to be brought into the practice of storing sugar.
in their practice, i come to my own; the response to harsh environment lies in the journey of how to hold sweetness. and slowly expend sweetness. plus the discernment that’s necessary for that syrupy ebb and flow.
tree’s showed me the intentionality winter requires and encourages. all living things who experience a cold season are brought into a deepened intentional existence. it’s easy for westernized humans to forget, what with our warm homes and artificial lights and grocery stores selling bananas grown in a different hemisphere that yes, we too still need to heed winter’s call of slowness, simplification and intention. even with our modern privileges and comforts. regardless of whether we recognize it, we are already called into heightened deliberateness. whether we’re talking about the preparation of bundling up. intentionally choosing just the right layers. to eating that meal that we know will fill and warm us— how much more attention has to go into nourishing our bodies and spirits. being called to that nap. that earlier bedtime. during winter, i love that tone in people’s voices when they say the shit they just need to do: “i’m gonna make soup this week,” “when i get home i’m gonna take a bath,” “i need to take a walk.” folks start verbalizing their needs to each other and we all murmur in agreement in body care of each other, oftentimes deciding to follow suit in some fashion. such delicious transpiring.
so im grateful for trees sharing their wisdom. gloriously gradual. compulsory discernment. embracing sweetness.
and now, a treacle from sza’s drop in my style. taken on my phone a few nights ago under the glow of my christmas tree with my bunny as my usual audience: kill bill.