Winter and the Bear

To some of us, the true meaning of the Yuletide holiday season and winter in general can feel skewed, warped and muddled into a month of madness with no real meaning; empty, joyless and unsatisfying. It is not unusual to look around and see festivities on steroids, excessive exuberance, dysfunctional behaviours and unhealthy attitudes at Christmastime.

Of course that is only one perspective truth of our collective wintery time of cheer but what is indisputable is that here in the Western world, our modern day technologies have afforded us the luxury of being blinded or immune to many of the cold realities of the season along with many of the beautiful benefits of what winter has to offer the human. The majority of Western civilisations live in a state of detachment from the natural world, no longer dictated to by the seasonal weathers, no longer reacting and receptive to the earth they are a part of. In innumerable ways, nature reflects our own inner mental, emotional and spiritual worlds, the earth acts as a physical guide and shows us every day how to be flexible, adaptive, healthy, whole and in a relational flow with the totality of life surrounding us. If we are living in an endless summer, out of sync with this planet, what does this mean for our holistic health as human beings? If we use winter as a metaphor, where are we avoiding the harsh truths of “winter” emotionally and mentally, what are we not acknowledging and refusing to adapt to in our personal lives? How many holiday movies does it take for the messages of the true meaning of the season to deeply integrate and begin shifting our cultural behaviours?

Once upon a time for our hunter gathering to early farming ancestors, winter could be a time of scarcity, of deep freezes and real risks to mortality, nowadays we are living in a land of plenty and so many of us would not relate to the winter lifestyles of our distant ancestors. Food these days is no longer scarce, it’s something we take for granted and physical survival is no longer a real threat (for the majority of the British population) and so year after year we instead get lost and distracted by a long list of to-dos and festivities. Refusing to step into the natural flow of winter often means we become exhausted, anxious, stressed and overwhelmed which can lower the function of our immune systems making us more susceptible to illness. Our nervous systems fry and actually engage us in a series of primitive instinctual fight, flight or fawn responses which is very interesting considering the true lack of threats to our physical survival. Survival these days is so often a battlefield existing in the mind and emotional fields of the human which then informs the physical body causing a cascading effect of physical backlashes. Winter time in the West seems to exacerbate and fuel this modern fight for survival for many people who suffer any form of melancholy, it can stretch and pick at their vulnerabilities.

If the wintery human worlds of our own creation that we live in today are partly unrelated and uniformed by the natural world; perhaps this is where we are missing an opportunity that our ancient relatives benefitted from. Gathering together in one place like we often do over the festive season echoes the distant act of gathering around a fire, keeping warm together, ensuring each others survival. The fire is a hopeful reminder of lighter times to come, a promise that the sun will warm the earth once more as the wheel turns and the earth cycles renew. One beauty of winter exists in that notion of gathering together, sharing, caring, giving and loving one another, to get through harsh times. Taking stock of the year, resting and recuperating fireside, hidden from the icy and cold world outside. This magic and beauty still does exist today and it underpins many of our “Christmas” motivations and plans we make during December. The challenge is removing the fluff, the unnecessary acts which over exert us, deplete us energetically and can make this time of year more stressful than serene.

This leads me to a useful medicine for this festive season. For anyone feeling overwhelmed and disenchanted, is the energy of the bear. Bear is a perfect example of a replenishing, functional energy to tap into or embody during this time of year. Bear knows that in order to survive, he has to hibernate, find a warm safe space within the earth, to process the year of food he has consumed, burning it down, using it for fuel for his emergence in the spring. Bear disappears, usually alone, into a womb like space within mother earth, a place that for humans can represent connecting to the spirit-world, to your spirit, to ancestors, angels and spirit guides. If we are to use the energy of the bear, the trick is retreating and being quiet enough to hear spirit whisper, to hear your whispers and the intelligence of your own mind, body and soul. Dream a little dream. Like bear and his year of feeding, we humans have stacked up a years worth of experience, some great experiences, some not so great with a whole myriad of colourful experiences in-between. Slowing down like bear allows you a time to rest, reconnect with yourself, to zero point everything, to get quiet, real and honest; a healthy practice for healing and wellbeing. This is the perfect time of year to allow these experiences of the year to melt away, to let what needs to die, die away and be used for fuel in the new year, deciding where you want to go next and with who by your side etc. In Winter we could allow old dreams, relationships, attitudes, problems etc to lie fallow, fall away, to be transformed into wisdom and direction. The raw energy of the old could be repurposed and reused for the replanting of little seeds of newness for the coming year.

If we gave ourselves permission to bear down in winter, to contemplatively face the year we have had at a time when the world supports and encourages this reflective shift in human activity, wouldn’t we all emerge in the spring stronger and healthier on all levels? If we prioritised our health like this, confronted our shadows, turned to spirit, sought our own divine counsel, integrated our life lessons, we could pave the way to becoming the best versions of ourselves. If we do the inner work, we are less likely to project our shadows on to our closest relationships meaning we can form stronger and more fulfilling connections with others. What if this mindfulness was the way to turn the dysfunctional culture we participate into a functional culture where we listen to our natural wintering instincts, our inner yearnings for peace and hibernation?

People will experience this season differently from their own unique and individual experiences, dependent on many factors. Generally speaking most of the population of Great Britain love the holiday season. As the earth demonstrates to us, balance is key. Most of us will be busy this time of year and will gladly enjoy many of the plans we make but setting time aside to bear down in winter, saying no to invitations that really don’t light you up inside, having boundaries on spending, taking the pressure and expectations off or refusing to follow the latest instagram trend to avoid the pitfalls of “compare and despair” are some examples of steps towards a calmer, healthier and happier season. A chance to escape the festive fuss and feel the warmth, joy and “Christmassy” yuletide magic we are all seeking.

I have posed a list of questions to you throughout this writing that only you know the answers to. If you’d like to share, i’d love to hear your perspectives, musings and opinions on winter in the West and if you resonate with the medicine and messages of the bear.

To tap into the energy of bear, I have created a 3 card spread to assist you in navigating this time of year and getting the most out of winter…

Deck used is the "Golden Art nouveau Tarot"