Winter Archives - Page 2 of 2

Welcome Winter!

On November 4, 2021

This picture is of my drawing room, all ready and prepared for our rather more seriously adult Calan Gaeaf/Hallowe’en celebrations last Sunday. The first day after the clocks ‘went back’, the end of the Celtic year and beginning of Winter.

I chose this picture because it typifies how I feel and what I like about this time of year – a drawing in and coming together of friends and family… a time to sit and cogitate, drift and dream beside the hearth… a chance to process all that has happened in one’s life over the light, sunny spring, summer and autumn months…

This is a special time – a few weeks when we can stop and draw breath, reconnect to our roots and grow into ourselves again before all the craziness of Midwinter and Christmas celebration engulfs us. It is a quiet, very personal time. My deeply hidden, secretive and passionate Scorpio self revels in the shadows, the darkness, and all that which is mysteriously hidden and only hinted at. I LOVE this time of year! Perhaps that is why I chose to be born now? But it speaks to all of us.

When I was a child I believed that it was the close proximity to all the excitement of Christmas which made this time of year so very precious and special to me, but it isn’t that at all, just the reverse. Midwinter/Christmas is a part of it, but the deep resonances of heath and home, of ancient connections and ancestors, of rest and rejuvenation and reaffirmation of belief in and love of life reach very much further into our genetic history… our psyche… the very fibre of our being.

Instead of shrinking away from the cold and the dark of winter, I like to enter wholeheartedly into each activity which the change in season and temperature brings. I mark the day when I need to once more get out my thick winter dresses and the evening I first need to wear my warmer nightdresses or fill my hot water bottle. My taste for certain foods changes too, and once more we are into days of baking cakes rich and heavy with fruit, sticky ginger parkin dark with molasses, steaming, savoury stews and casseroles and one of my childhood favourites, ‘taty pie (meat and potato pie) with pale pastry crust and accompanied by well buttered and peppered root veg from the garden.

Longer evenings mean more time to talk and share with the family, to enjoy leisurely meals, to be unhurried. They also facilitate opportunities to plan and create treats for the Midwinter festivities, secret surprises for all to enjoy with all the glee and little or none of the corrosive pressure. And they provide the time and space to settle with a good book, a long neglected hobby, or simply the space to simply be…

So, please don’t reject the winter – grab it with both hands and thoroughly enjoy it while it is here . The long, light, frenetically busy spring and summer months will soon be back with us. Take this opportunity to absorb the nourishing darkness, sink into the shadows, relax and find yourself again.

Greetings For Calan Gaeaf!

By Gillian Monks

On October 30, 2020

In Musings of the Hearth

The Ancestor Table is set and awaits the names, photos and memorabilia of those to be remembered and honoured… a time of soft light and deep shadows.

So, here we are… at the end of Summer and the beginning of Winter. The seeds of all our endeavours for 2020 have been sown – and harvested – and what a curious year it has been.

Now it is time to draw all the threads of our year together. To take all that we have hoped for, striven for and achieved, all we have failed at or lost, and pull them within to be reviewed, reworked and reborn in resolutions for the coming new year. In the summer months of the year the light is all around us… it pervades, intrudes, even disturbs our sleep as it demands our attention and constant activity. But here we are at the very threshold of Winter – with barely eight hours of daylight each day, less in stormy times of heavy cloud and driving rain, and growing ever shorter as we journey on to Midwinter.

The focus of our lives shifts. The undeniable light which suffused us throughout the summer has dimmed. It is time to harvest that too, and take the light within… to shield and nurture it… to sit and be present with it… to bring it to the very edge of our own inner cauldron which represents the roiling, moiling inner source of all that makes us ‘us’ and illuminate what we discover there. For this is also the time of our own inner harvest. Then we may rest, recuperate, and await our rebirth with that of the Sun at Midwinter. Take time to breath and reflect… to decide where you go from here… what you wish to see and do in the new year… and, perhaps most importantly of all, how you wish to achieve it.

Be bold! Be daring! This time of pandemic is not one for holding back and being timid – it is a time of make or break, a time to play your hand and aim for the very highest goals.

As Darkness envelops us (in many more ways than one) and the northern half of the Earth judders and sighs as she settles for her rest, all that has passed and gone before – along with all possibility of what may be to come – draws near us at this liminal time, the transition from this to… what? It is for us to choose. And at this time of decision, all the Ancestors, our ancestors, of blood, of place, of belief, draw close once more. Do they come to support us? To chastise us for our follies? To seek forgiveness and love? Welcome them. We need solidarity at this particular time. They have faced it all before. They can help to guide us through. Simply open your hearts and minds to them with love. You do not have to know who they are, just acknowledge that they have been… must have existed, or else you could not possibly be here now. Buried deep within your DNA are genetic memories of all that they have experienced, and they will help you remember now, so that you may learn by their own personal collective triumphs and failures what to repeat and where not to go.

I do not wish you a mere ‘good weekend of festivity’, or a jolly, enjoyable or exciting ‘Hallowe’en’ with silly masks and make-up and fancy dress and all the theatricals which humanity employs when it is really seeking to dodge important issues.

I wish you a mind-bogglingly transformative weekend, an experience of such depth and colour that it will take your breath away. But to begin, simply sit with yourself, light a candle, and be silent, with love in your heart.

May the true blessings of Calan Gaeaf / Samhain / Hallowe’en be yours!

It’s Here!

By Gillian Monks

On October 26, 2020

In News

‘Spring’ is not quite this large – it is just the perspective of the camera shot – but I promise you that it is a good read!

It is said that if winter comes, can spring be far behind? Well, for me, winter truly begins this weekend… and my third book, ‘Spring In Your Step’ will be published ten days later. And here it is! The proof copy (which is why it has that dark strip across its front cover) just to make sure that there is nothing else that needs doing to it before it goes to print.

The book takes us all from the cold, snowy, dark depressing days of January through the spring months to the very edge of summer and explains how the celebration of the return of spring has developed over the years – not only in the U.K. but in other parts of the world too, it is just another common thread which humanity shares – but contains loads ideas of how we may enjoy these often difficult days of bad weather when the light and warmth of spring and summer seems a very long way off. There are lots of examples of how we might genuinely and authentically celebrate and enjoy these first few often inhospitable months of the year and use them for planning and laying the groundwork for the rest of our year… which, hopefully, will literally give you a real ‘spring in your step’. Like every other season, it is not really what is happening in the rest of the world but how we choose to see it, and hopefully, my third book will help everyone to recalibrate their perception of the first season of the year and make the absolute most of these fresh young spring days of hope, inspiration and potential.

‘Spring In Your Step; Discover and Celebrate the Magic of Springtime’ can be pre-ordered now on https://herbarybooks.com/product/spring-in-your-step/

#herbarybooks #spring #springbook #merrymidwinter #gillianmonks #springbooks #bookstagram #book #books #newbook #bookshelf #booklove #womenwriters #womenauthors #welshtraditions #childrenbook #childrensbook

Gwyl Ffraid Hapus!

By Gillian Monks

On February 1, 2019

In Musings of the Hearth

A crisp day of earliest spring!

A very happy Gwyl Ffraid/Imbolc to you all! After a wonderful walk along the river with the family this afternoon, we are toasting in front of a roaring blaze… only white candles lit for light… peace and stillness at this pivotal time between the end of winter and the earliest stirrings of spring. Enjoy!

Celebrating the Winter Solstice

By Gillian Monks

On December 22, 2018

In Out and About

On my way into the woods

Celebrating the Winter Solstice yesterday came as a timely antidote to all the travel and excitement of being in London the previous day. Nothing could possibly be more different from the hustle, bustle, noise and frenetic movement of several million people crammed into a relatively small space. The deserted mountains of Snowdonia thickly cloaked in swirling blankets of grey cloud lay like moody sleeping giants around us. Occasionally the lowering skies wept gentle showers of rain. Everything lay damp… and very still… and very quiet.

Carrying baskets of torches and candles, firewood and goodies, we walked deeper into the woods which now cover the deep scars of what was once one of the biggest slate quarries in North Wales. We headed for our usual spot amongst the birch, willow and oak trees and here we lit our Midwinter fire and our coloured lanterns to hang among the trees.

We came to reminisce about the year just passing; to set out intentions for the coming cycle of seasons; to sing our old, beloved carols and songs; to give great thanks