When the sun stands still

Briefly:

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Hello

We’ve reached that time of year again: it’s almost impossibly dark*. The sun is currently setting here at a quarter to four, but the sky is uniformly grey anyway, so the light disappears long before then. Everything is heavy, obscure. A blanket has been thrown by the world. Even at midday, the air seems grubby in the house, as if besmirched by the season.

Two weeks until the solstice. Just two weeks until the year turns. It’s hard to believe we’re so close, isn’t it? Just as we begin to despair - this is surely an eternal winter, deeper and more difficult than we’ve ever known - here it is on the horizon. Change. Newness. A shuffling of the deck. The promise of life again, creeping back and then, suddenly, burgeoning. Press your hand to the soil, and you can almost feel it under the ground, restive after a too-hot November. Everything is getting ready.

But first, the solstice. It’s not a single day, a pivot on which the year turns, but actually a much longer pause. It’s name is latin: sol stit, the sun stands still. It derives from a time when we watched the sky more carefully, and noticed that the sun seemed to stop at its furthest westerly reach in the sky for around twelve days, before beginning its journey eastward again. The solstice is a lull in time itself, the slack of a grand tide. In those days, we rest, and celebrate, and think about how we’ll be when time starts again. We unpick our stitches, and remake ourselves again. We do all of this under the year’s guidance. Our only work is surrender.

There is still joy to be found in these last, dreary days of the old year. At the weekend, I went out for a long lunch with a good old friend, and when I got home, H had hung the front of the house with a patchwork of string lights, all of them different colours. We have started to set up a fir tree in our tiny front garden each year, and this year’s is big enough to rival Trafalgar Square. I like it. Yesterday afternoon, there was a precious blast of golden sunlight, and after I’d stepped outside to bathe in it, I noticed how it traced the needles of my tree in silhouette across the window. There was nothing much lovelier than watching them sway for a while.

Just a few days to go, and all this changes again. Until then, we can push against that deadweight winter feeling with light, and fresh air, and good company. We can allow the prickle of dissatisfaction rise in us. That’s exactly how we’re supposed to feel. This is the place where change happens, where a skin is shed and a new one grown. This is the cauldron in which the next life is brewed like a potion. I love being here.

*Except for readers in Australia and New Zealand, who have every right to be smug.

Live dates & workshops

I’ll be running day retreats in the depths of midwinter to capture this magic - do join me. And if you’re one of the million (maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but still) people who’ve messaged me to say, I’m desperate to come but I don’t think I can quite make it: come. I can feel lots of you urging yourselves to take a leap, and I know from long experience that this is the beginning of a very important shift, if you can bear to take it.

If cost is an issue, you can apply for a randomly-selected free place here, or message us if we can help a little to meet the costs. For me, this is about gathering with the people who need to be there. 

My News

I am no longer on Twitter! I’ve been there for more than a decade, and it’s been such an formative part of my life. It’s the place where I met my autistic community, and learned a whole new language and understanding. It’s a place I’ve gone to whenever I want to laugh or lament.

I will still never stand for anyone saying that social media is uniformly bad for us - for many of us, it’s a lifeline. But my personal experience of social media has changed since Wintering was published, and I now find it a stressful place to be. A big part of it, for me, is simply narrowing down the number of places I feel I need to check. Even though it’s usually people being kind to me, or asking for help, I feel like I keep falling short in saying, ‘Thank you’ and ‘I hope you’re okay’. It’s more than I can manage anymore.

So, it’s time for a big change. I have to admit it feels liberating. I didn’t want to write the Big Piece on Why I’m Leaving Twitter - it’s not like that. I just wanted to mark its passing in my life.

At the Rookery…

Earlier this week, we got the chance to talk to Pulitzer Prize winning author Kathryn Schulz about here beautiful memoir, Lost & Found. I loved her comments on ‘andness’ and the circular nature of once - everything all at once. January’s True Stories Book Club pick is Dorthe Nors’ ravishing A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast.

In the Wanderers tier this week, we had a great Creative Questions, discussing how to restart abandoned projects, and how to quiet that vicious inner editor - was very happy to bring to bear my deep experience of both! I also endured a desk invasion by a spider.

Next week is our final online session of the year - a Christmas hangout, when I’ll be reading from my favourite Chirstmas books and offering some previews of Enchantment. Santa hats optional.

And finally, my apologies to everyone who’s asked if it’s possible to gift a Patreon membership - apparently it’s not, which is frustrating. We’re having a think about whether we should move platform for more flexibility - I’d love to hear your recommendations (would a backstage area on her be better?). I’m just worried about disrupting the gorgeous community we have at the moment. Technology: SIGH.

Okay, time to light more candles. Take care,

Katherine x

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