My new course: The Way Through Winter

A resource for your dark times

Hello,

I’m very excited today to share something I’ve been working on for a long time - a self-guided course for anyone who wants to go deeper into the foundational ideas of Wintering.

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Divided into seven parts, The Way Through Winter offers a chance to work through the concepts in the book through exclusive recordings and readings, reflective and creative exercises and guided meditations. There’s a lot of new material in there, and a gorgeous soundscape to help you immerse in the learning.

The course is designed for people who’ve read the book, and would like to enter into a period of reflection and change with a little more structure. I wanted to offer a lower-cost option than my retreats and day events, and something that can be followed from the comfort of your own home, hopefully making it accessible to many more people.

Paid subscribers get a 35% discount - which is roughly the cost of an annual subscription. It’s hidden behind the paywall at the bottom of the page.

When I was designing the programme, one thing that felt important to me was to let you sample the experience before you commit to buying the whole thing. When I was researching the market, I was a bit horrified by the pushy sales techniques that a lot of people are using, and I wanted to make sure that there was none of that anywhere. For that reason, there’s a Week 0 of the programme, which is free to all, with no pressure to go any further. If you like it, you can buy the rest of the course. If it’s not for you, no worries.

It’s hosted online by a platform called Podia, and so you’ll just need to create a login there, which will allow you to save your progress as you work your way through.

You can go straight there if you like and try it out.

Or read more about the programme on my website:

What’s the course about?

The Way Through Winter is a nurturing process for exploring the dark and difficult times in our lives. Written and voiced by Katherine May, author of Wintering and Enchantment, this 6-week programme will guide you through reflective and creative ways to understand your experiences and mindset as you traverse life’s frozen landscapes.

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Course structure

Week 0

An introduction to this course

• What is wintering?

• Understanding the connection between the cold season and the dark moments in our lives.

• How to think about time as a cycle.

Week 1: Winter Quietly Rolls In

Understanding your time of wintering

• You Are Here: what it feels like to land in a personal winter.

• Exploring the belief systems that tell us that wintering is a personal failure.

• Adapting to slow time.

Week 2: Getting Cold

On feeling ‘out in the cold’ and ‘frozen’

• Making friends with the cold and understanding its effect on our bodies.

• What cold weather tells us about the hard parts of life.

• Self-care during our personal winters.

Week 3: Slumber

Exploring sleep, dreams and liminality

• Understanding liminality and its importance in our lives.

• Inhabiting the hidden spaces that open up during winter.

• The importance of dreams in dark times.

Week 4: Metamorphosis

On irresistible change

• Understanding winter as a process of transition.

• The changes of winter: shedding, paring back, renewing.

• Discerning between agency and control.

Week 5: Light and Darkness

Walking with painful feelings

• The wolves of winter: grief, craving, bitterness and anger.

• Understanding our midwinter moment.

• The uses of light in dark times.

Week 6: Thawing

Meeting the world after a long winter

• Why you cannot rush your winter.

• How to sense and approach your thaw.

• Engaging with purpose and wisdom as you emerge.

To find out more, or to join the course, go to katherinemay.co.uk/the-way-through-winter.

If you’d like to purchase the course as a gift for someone, click here.

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