Wintering: a practice (part 2)
How to make the most of liminal times in the cold season
Thank you for being here! The seventh edition of the Atlas is a special three parts newsletter. As a podcast and community set up to explore building a home in the “in-between” states of life, this month we are observing a month of “Wintering”. Traversing the transitions that the cold brings, letting go of the spring energy of production for a moment. The last days of January in pre-industrial cultures, were the last moment before renewal commenced on February 1st. Friday, today and Sunday we will share with you a journey in three parts of a personal experience with wintering, followed by three prompts to reflect on your own: an artistic experiment with ice, a silent retreat and a voyage to the Arctic circle.
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Returning to silence: a week going inward
“Silence is the attitude of conserving your energy within your body and mind”, the retreat organiser told us cross-legged over two side pillows, covered in a blanket, sitting on an inclined chair.
Her posture denoted someone who knew exactly where each of her joints hurt.
My first ever silent retreat was two years ago for five days. This year, I was lucky enough to have been given one for my birthday by my partner, in the same place.
I went there goal-less.
All I knew is that after a long brush with Covid-19 and a blood clot, in the past years I have fallen ill twice and recovered twice.
My body as a result has been living in a constant state of alert, and my mind somewhere registered the message that someone or something is constantly out there to get me. I felt jumpy, displaced and was looking for something to re-inhabit my energy without constant anxiety being triggered.
Each retreat has an official start of the silence after the first dinner and an official time to quit it after the last breakfast.
The first one comes easier, because when I stop speaking I am still living in between two worlds for a couple of days. Nothing has really hit yet, I am still in a rush to nowhere.
That is why they help you get “there” with meditation and body practice, like Yoga and Qi Gong. However strict you want it to be.
Suddenly, as soon as my mind allows it, my body starts to slow down, crave less and sleep uneasily. Nightmares keep me up at night, together with the energy of the full moon light-less nights.
“When something goes up, something else has to come down”, our teachers told us.
I wait. I accept. There is nothing to change because now, this energy is circulating inside of me, not directed towards others. I have less control of its power.
We are eating healthy and hearty, wholesome food, and yet on the third day it starts to feel like I am fasting.
When we are instructed to rest in stillness, I can hear my mind go thought-less for a split second. I am surprised at this being even possible, and I hope to be able to hold on to this empty space.
It is not scary, it is miraculous, like I have uncovered a hidden secret that’s hard to spell.
My belly releases. I am clear headed enough to shift from worrying about filling up space with things to do, to follow my body around and see what she feels like doing.
Maybe a hammock, maybe the sun, maybe water. Maybe just being.
One morning, during a tension release practice in Qi Gong, it was the first time I ever felt the energy in my body to be something I didn’t produce, but something that I was instead hosting.
A new citizen, my body simply a territory for it to travel through.
My heart started racing, reaching my head with a sharp pain. Tears started coming down and with no warning, I started sobbing, uncontrollably.
I had to put down a cushion and sit with my back touching the wall for support.
“I don’t know why I am crying”, I sobbed to my teacher. My knees, weak.
“You don’t have to”, he replied, kindly.
As I retreated back to my room, I quickly glanced at my phone in its rigorous do not disturb mode.
A notification from my brother floating on screen as a stranger in a foreign land. He knew not to call, if not for emergencies.
And so I started crying at noon, and found out at 2 PM a person dear to my heart and close to my family had passed, in my village in the South, where I am from.
Suddenly, I had lost someone while I was in silence. And I had felt her leave.
I had to read it through a text, cause there were no phone calls allowed.
When it happened, I felt like I was being swallowed by the bed cushions and only existed outside of my body for a moment to try and protect myself from the large wave of silent sorrow that was coming.
No one to speak to, felt like nowhere to turn.
I got a small pass from someone at the front desk who allowed me to call home. We were all stuck where we were because no funeral attendance was allowed for pandemic reasons.I panicked at the idea of enduring this with no sound, away from my loved ones.
Everyone just kept sending me texts. “I am there with you. You are not alone”.
But I was.
And it was, ultimately, a privilege.
I have always lived grief over a loved one as a communal, deeply physical experience. A wet long hug to the closest person, touching and shielding somebody else’s pain, the howling, covering the mirror in the room, approaching the lifeless body with the fear of seeing her eyeballs still moving, touching a cold hand, walking the casket, filling up the evening whipping up some dinner, accelerating normalcy.
Non solitary grief is a busy time. Sorrow flows in and out and in between, but can never seem to rest enough to grasp what’s on the other side of feeling, amidst the scheduled rituals.
In silence, I could connect with my loss. In private. Who we lost represented someone very important for me growing up. I shed tears that were held deep in a profound space between me and my childhood.
Without negotiating them with expected interruptions, I could look at the mountains instead of concrete walls and extend. I felt her without limits now, I felt her in the sunset, in the starry night, at dawn. Like her energy could really be close to me now that she lived outside of the limitations of her body.
I walked tirelessly in the garden, and marvelled at the sounds of nature. As it got more and more silent within me, I could hear the sound of falcon wings, swooshing over my head.
Everything made me feel like she was not departed, she was actually even more present now.
The day after, I woke up with sore eyes. But I also woke up so intensely joyful. All that was left of that first day of goodbye, was the true joy she gave me and all the people around her.
Would have I been able to feel her so deeply and so widely, would I not have had the silence to hold me?
“Silence is ever present. And then noises latch on it. But inside of you, it is always silent”. My teachers told me.
When we return home, we return to silence.
Prompt # 2: How can you make some more space for silence this winter? What would silence tell you if you listened to it?
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If you feel like, share your answer in the comment section below.
See you tomorrow for part 3: “Returning to darkness: a journey to the Arctic Circle”
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