Heading Toward Winter | The Parenting Passageway

All outside is dark and cold

But just beneath the earth

Sleep seeds from which new life spring

Bringing Nature’s gifts to birth

• Betty Jones, from “A Child’s Seasonal Treasury”

The days are shorter, the nights are colder, and the leaves on the deciduous trees have fallen. We are headed toward winter, a time of deep rest, a time of projects, a time of wonder at snow and lights and the beautiful winter sky with the skeletons of trees etched against the horizon.

We can set up a seasonal table with snow white and pink silks, crystals of quartz and amethyst, glass vases, paper snowflakes or an beautiful Advent tableau with a dark blue silk with candles and gold paper stars. The traditional Advent wreath can come out.

We are moving from a time of mourning and remembering our ancestors, the saints, those who have gone before us to a new year and a new path. We are preparing for what is to come. What are the deepest longings of your heart for the coming year? Advent can be a time of fasting and preparing and contemplating for this new beginning. I have already chosen my word of the year for 2023 (for more on that tradition, see here)..I think this is going to be a BIG year, so I chose the word BOLD. I will have one child finishing college in December 2023, another child beginning college in 2023, we will have been on our farm for two years in the spring, and with this I am making some new and different choices in the midst of this seventh seven year cycle of my own life and also returning to my roots in many ways.

I am dreaming of some kind of Waldorf homeschool opportunity for high schoolers and I am back to wanting to teach at homeschool conferences. Waldorf parenting and education is so nurturing to all family members, no matter what the age. It draws me in with its healing impulse over and over again.

What is calling you for winter?

Blessings,

Carrie