Winter has arrived in Berlin. As I write this, snow falls outside my window, decorating the city with its beautiful glaze.

Normally, the arrival of winter sends me into a bit of a panicked resistance. The cold grey skies and darkness push my urge to flee to warmer lands, avoiding it all together and denying its existence. However, this year I find myself in an inviting mood towards winter’s entrance.

Right now, I’m enjoying the change of pace that winter brings here, the slowing down, the diffused soft light of the sun, the hygge candlelit evenings - and the death of the year as we’ve lived it. Berlin feels so much quieter.

Don’t get me wrong, after nearly a decade of living here, I know firsthand how the harsh Berlin winters can be. And I know that for many this time can feel challenging.

But as Katherine May writes in her brilliant book “Wintering”:

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it’s essential.”

We need not fear the cold, darkness and sparseness, but let its beauty, wisdom and slowness support whatever shedding and transformation we need.

Winter’s energy is metamorphic, if we let it be.

How will you be spending this winter? Drop me a reply if you’d like :)

With love,
Mariana