February 2025

Seasonal Living

• Contemplating The Energy Of Winter
• Love & The Earth
• The Medicine Of Bone Broth
• Seasonal Affective Disorder

For many people, winter days are cold, long, and dark, but winter can be full of possibilities for rest and rejuvenation. In a culture that glorifies being busy, where the more you run around chasing your own tail, the more productive or important you are perceived, the stillness of winter might be terrifying.

At the same time, we don’t want to confuse outward stillness with stagnation. Winter is not about being lazy; instead, it is when the Earth cooks the compost that fertilizes spring’s seeds.

Contemplating The Energy Of Winter

Nature’s natural cycles don’t change much of how we live our daily lives. We mostly get up at about the same time and go to bed at about the same time. The local grocery store stocks the shelves with the same foods year-round, even the produce aisles.

However, for the human body, which has developed for millions of years while exposed to the elements, the breakup with nature’s cycle is nothing but confusing. Supporting the body’s inner clocks helps reinforce one’s place in nature and boost well-being.

The Energy Of Winter

Healers from all over the world observed nature, looking for patterns that described how the life forces manifest in different natural phenomena.

As a traditional Western herbalist, I adhere to the Western energetic system that grew from the four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.

Further observation brought forth three qualities that are described as a spectrum.

The form – Form gives natural phenomena its boundaries. Phenomena can manifest in too much form, rigidity, or in insufficient form, or lax. Think about how a guitar string needs to be in the right length and tightness to produce a harmonious sound. A string too lax can’t produce any sound. A string bound too tight makes a shrieking, painful sound.

The fluid – Fluids are the foundation of life. They carry nourishment and toxins and promote vitality. All natural phenomena need fluids, but too much dampness and congestion create stagnation. Bogginess attracted bacteria and mosquitoes. On the other hand, dryness can’t support life. In a healthy being, the fluids move but don’t overflow or leak.

The temperature – A phenomenon can be either hot or cold. Too hot is like fire, all-consuming. Extreme cold, like in the poles, inhibits all movement and growth. Extremes are a sign of imbalance that needs our support.

These three qualities created the six tissue states that can be applied to nature, plants, people, and conditions.

Not surprisingly, winter is cold and dry. To offset this, you want a lifestyle that respects your body’s need to slow down but supports a balanced inner warmth, form, and fluidity.

If you let go and surround yourself fully with the winter season, you might develop seasonal affective disorder, a condition in which the mind is cold and dry. On the other hand, if you ignore the need for your body to slow down in the winter, you might end up burned down.

The taste of winter

Winter is associated with a sweet taste—not the sweetness of sugar but rather the blended taste of carbohydrates, such as in baked goods, pasta, and bread. The sweet flavor tonifies, builds, nourishes, and moistens tissue.

Glucose is the body’s prime energy source, and in winter, we need more energy to keep warm; therefore, we crave more carbs.

Soups and stew made with roots that could easily be stored in a root cellar were food staples before we each got our own refrigerator. Roots such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and rutabagas, when used in soaps and stews, are warming and comforting in the winter.

Adding sweet herbal roots such as astragalus and codonopsis to your soups can support the immune system. Burdock root is moistening and nourishing. It has an affinity to the skin and can offset the dryness of the season. I like to add a handful of “chipped” roots to my bone broth, but you can also decoct them and drink them as tea.

Porridges made from grains, such as oatmeal and rice pudding, are another warming and comforting option in winter. Add grated apples, berries, cinnamon, and a touch of maple.

Using warming, stimulating herbs and spices that are usually pungent helps move the blood and lymph, preventing sluggish digestion, absorption, and elimination. In the blog about the energetic of the fall season, I wrote extensively on aromatic and pungent herbs and spices.

The body organs associated with winter

The organs associated with winter are the digestive system and the bones.

Digestion in winter

The digestive system provides fuel for heating the body. While the hypothalamus sets the body’s base temperature and thyroid hormones set the metabolic rate, the nutrients from the food we eat and absorb feed the metabolic fire.

While digestion provides energy, it is also an energy-consuming activity. Producing digestive enzymes, breaking down food, and absorbing nutrients are energy-consuming.

The daily cycle of light and darkness affects digestive enzymes and insulin production, glucose metabolism, and metabolic rate. In winter, when the days are shorter, these processes are slower.

Therefore, you want to ease the body’s efforts to keep you warm and nourished by eating foods that have already been somewhat broken down through cooking. Foods such as soups and stews can help build heat.

The same foods that provide heat and comfort in winter will sit heavy in the stomach in summer.

Bare bones

Looking out my kitchen window, I see the maple trees standing naked in winter. On short, cold days, we tend to get to the bare bones.

Bones are the hardest part of the body. Although we think of bones as dead matter, new blood cells are produced in the marrow in the center of bones.

Bones, like winter, hold the secret connection between life and death. At this time of year, when nothing seems to grow, nature is a quiet picture of black and white; under the roots, the Earth is alive, and compost is cooked.

For many people, winter is challenging partly because it makes the cycle of life and death so real. It is hard to hide from ourselves when the outer and inner worlds slow down when the darkness outside is mirrored within.

Winter is the cocoon of transformation. It is the essential stage of chrysalis; without it, there would not be a butterfly.

In her book “Wintering” author Katherine May writes:

“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, maximising 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