Hibernate or Stratify
How will you move through winter?
Winter is coming. In preparation we grow thicker coats and stock our pantries. We settle into our caves and slow down to conserve energy. The winter world is a slumbering state of dormancy, but even in this state growth is happening. Change happens.
For our plant and animal kin, surviving winter can mean hibernation or stratification. Hibernation is the voluntary state an animal enters to conserve energy and minimize exposure to the elements. Waking can take hours and uses up a lot of energy so our animal kin wake up sparingly to eat, drink, and use the bathroom. Hibernation is a time for dreaming.
I cannot speak to the experience of hibernating squirrels or snakes, but for humans the dream world can be an incredible place of discovery. We can learn about ourselves, our desires, our fears, even our ancestral connections. In dreaming we experience existence outside the confines of our meat suits and enter a realm where anything is possible.
What if we chose to hibernate and rested deeply during the cold months? What if we allowed ourselves to dive into the realm of our imagination all winter long, harvesting the good stuff and integrating it into ourselves? We could emerge in spring with deep knowledge.
For our perennial plant kin, stratification allows seeds to undergo physiological and biochemical changes in order to germinate and does the same for established plants allowing them to propagate. Stratification breaks dormancy. The process helps soften or weaken the seed coating allowing the plant to grow in the spring. Without the winter cold some plants will remain in a perpetual state of dormancy.
I really love how the version of a perennial plant that exists this season does not exist the next season. Each year is a new version of that plant. New branches, more or less blooms; it changes based on what happens to it during the warm months, stratifies through winter, and emerges the following year a slightly evolved version of itself having integrated the good and bad from the following year.
I propose that as humans we have the privilege of choosing if we hibernate or stratify through the winter. We can rest, grounding our bones deeply. Allow ourselves to hibernate and dive into our dreams, deeply familiarizing ourselves with our inner worlds and desires. Or we welcome the transformation of stratification and use the dormancy of the winter to integrate the lessons of the past year in order to emerge more grandly in the spring with more blooms and blossoms. They’re both equally tantalizing options. Which will you choose?
Winter Candle
Ingredients:
Taper candles - color and wax of your choosing
Frankincense
Something to carve into your candle
Powdered nutmeg and cinnamon
Optional: cedar or balsam fir oil
Directions:
Between now and the Winter Solstice spend time crafting a sigil focused on warmth, light, and abundance. Think of the kinds of things that make you feel safe and warm on a cold winter’s night. If you’re unfamiliar with crafting sigils there’s a pretty good explanation here.
On the Winter Solstice, gather ingredients and prepare your ritual space. You will be laying the candles in the center of your altar or ritual space. You can keep it simple and lay them directly on your altar or you can lay them on a bed of the evergreens that you collected. The level of intricacy is up to you!
One by one, carve your sigil into each candle, being sure to lay them back on your altar once when you’re done with them. Then dress each with the nutmeg, cinnamon, and oil if you’re using that . Pay particular attention to your sigil.
Once carved, pass the candles through the frankincense smoke one by one. As you do this speak out a blessing that these candles be a light of hope, light, and renewal during the long dark of the winter.
Store them carefully and burn them when the winter nights feel particularly long and cold.
DECEMBER MONTH AHEAD READING
P.S. From now through December 31 use code WINTERSOLSTICE for 25% off when scheduling readings with me
Sometimes people think they have to do big things in order to make change. But if each one would light a candle, we'd have a tremendous light.
- Sister Thea Bowman
Quote shared with me by a dear friend