Scan barcode
A review by zoeelizabethk
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
Wintering in a lot of ways is about the process of learning to embrace the cyclical nature of life - the seasons come and go and come around again, and so do phases in our lives. We all have our winterings, whether it be due to stress, emergencies, bad situations, depression, illness, or more. Katherine May shares how she learned to lean into these darker times and discovered ways that helped her embrace the cold and hard and honor her needs while waiting for spring.
As a family that gardens, our lives fall into a rhythm that mimics the seasons (even though it's not a lot) and as an Orthodox Christian, the church year cycles around from lent to Pascha to other feasts and fasts and back again. So this is a concept I've thought about before.
I think May has a lot of valuable things to share that will open your mind and perhaps convince you to try this mindset. My main complaint is that there are a lot of tangents - which, while they are related to the topic, sometimes feel extraneous and like they don't add much. May's writing is somewhat stream of consciousness, but is also extremely readable so even when you wonder what the point of a story is, you never feel bogged down. Ultimately this is more about mindset than specific practical strategies to rest/retreat. So please don't go in with the expectation that this will be a workbook-ish style book. Nevertheless, I think this is a very valuable read to learn to recognize and work with our dark periods.
As a family that gardens, our lives fall into a rhythm that mimics the seasons (even though it's not a lot) and as an Orthodox Christian, the church year cycles around from lent to Pascha to other feasts and fasts and back again. So this is a concept I've thought about before.
I think May has a lot of valuable things to share that will open your mind and perhaps convince you to try this mindset. My main complaint is that there are a lot of tangents - which, while they are related to the topic, sometimes feel extraneous and like they don't add much. May's writing is somewhat stream of consciousness, but is also extremely readable so even when you wonder what the point of a story is, you never feel bogged down. Ultimately this is more about mindset than specific practical strategies to rest/retreat. So please don't go in with the expectation that this will be a workbook-ish style book. Nevertheless, I think this is a very valuable read to learn to recognize and work with our dark periods.