Nature

Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Winter

December 21 is the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Parts of Canada, Alaska, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Greenland, and the northern tip of Iceland will experience 24 hours of total darkness.

Winter could be a long, dark, and difficult time for many of our forebears. The solstice provided an opportunity to celebrate the return of more daylight.

How did ancient people celebrate?

Gift-giving

The ancient Romans exchanged candles and other gifts during Saturnalia, their week-long solstice celebration.

Role-switching

In Persia, the king changed places with one of his subjects on the winter solstice, and the subject was crowned during an elaborate street party.

In Rome, masters and servants switched roles; senators wore simple, rather than elaborate togas; men sometimes dressed as women; fights and grudges were forgotten; and other everyday conventions were put aside.

Candle-lighting

In England and Scandinavia, people lit a Yule log, or oak branch, which was often replaced by a large candle that burned throughout the day.

Bonfires

Japanese Shinto farmers lit fires on the mountainsides to welcome back the sun.

Mistletoe and Evergreen Trees

The British Celts put mistletoe on their altars. And the Germans and Romans decorated their houses with evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands as a symbol of life and renewed fertility.

Sun Festivals

The Hopi celebrated the return of the sun with ceremonies. Priests dressed in animal skins with feathers in their headdresses to look like the rays of the sun.

Why celebrate the first day of winter?

The holiday season is busy enough for most of us. Why add anything else to the to-do list?

Celebrating the first day of each season offers the perfect opportunity to:

Note the cyclical changes in the soil, sky, trees, plants, and wildlife.
Reflect on the lessons each time of year imparts. Winter reminds us of the importance of quiet, rest, and dormancy.
Learn about different celebrations around the world.
Celebrate! Seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.
Be grateful for the gifts of food, family, and friendship.

The key to celebrating the first day of winter, when most of us are busy planning other celebrations, is to keep it simple, and choose traditions that give you time to relax and reflect.

Simple (and free) ways to celebrate winter

Observe

Watch the sunrise and sunset. You probably won’t even have to set an alarm. At our house, it will rise at 7:44 and set at 4:37 on Tuesday. (The good news is longer, brighter days are coming.) You can find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

Wander

Take a hike, go cross-country skiing, or go for a walk and look for signs of the season. Listen to winter’s music. Compare winter’s textures: dry bark, soggy leaves, and spongy moss. Notice winter’s distinctive scents.

Give

Find gifts for each other from nature. Exchange small handmade gifts. Make maple caramel corn for friends or neighbors. The key is to keep it simple.

Feast

Serve up your favorite winter crops: beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips. We’re fans of stuffed squash and homemade sauerkraut this time of the year. Lighting candles can turn an ordinary meal into a celebration.

Reflect

Spend some time relaxing together in front of the fire. Share one thing you’ve lost and one thing you’ve gained over the past year. Tell stories about your best and worst holiday memories. Make wishes for the coming year. Reflect on the lessons of winter: the importance of rest, dormancy, and stillness.

The key to seasonal celebrations is to make them simple and relaxing. The last thing most of us need is another stressful winter tradition.

What’s your favorite thing about winter? Leave me a comment. I’d love to hear about it!

(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published December 14, 2009)

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Why You Should Sync Your Schedule with the Seasons

By Abby Quillen

“Then there are those rare days … that dawn with a clarity that muscles its way into every home and studio and office . . . There’s a delicious radiance that seems to come from the things themselves . . .” – David Abram

We experienced our first spring-like day this weekend — birds singing, sun shining, daffodils in full bloom, windows open. Ahhh.

All day I was bursting with ideas and creativity. Most of us keep making our to-do lists and checking off items right on through the darkest, coldest months. Summer and winter were interchangeable in my former workplaces. Not once did a manager suggest we adjust our work to be more in sync with our natural seasonal inclinations.

But these first spring days have a way of showing us how stubbornly linked our minds and moods remain with the seasons.

One of my friends manages an organic farm. Not surprisingly, his life is more in sync with nature than most of ours. In the winter, he rests or travels. Then in the early spring, he starts working, gradually increasing his hours with the longer days.

But you don’t have to trade your computer for a hoe to get more in tune with nature. One independent author realized that winter was an excellent time to stay inside writing, whereas spring was the ideal time for book releases, so that’s how he arranges his life now. Some companies have started giving employees extra time off during the summer since that’s when people want to be outside and with family. My dad was a freelance writer, and he took nearly every afternoon off in September for fall hikes.

[clickToTweet tweet=”You may be healthier and more productive if you sync your life with the seasons. #productivity” quote=”You may be healthier and more productive if you sync your life with the seasons.” theme=”style1″]

I’m fortunate to have some flexibility in my working life, so I try to pay attention to nature’s cycles and adjust my life and work accordingly. But it’s not easy because our modern lifestyle — climate controlled houses and vehicles, cities lit up around the clock, ripe tomatoes available year round — are so adept at inoculating us from nature’s whims. Planting a garden helps since I have to pay attention to and cooperate with nature from spring to early fall.

But every spring I realize how hard I’ve pushed myself to keep exercising, producing, and working at full capacity right through the winter elements. I suspect winter colds and influenza are nature’s way of saying, “Enough. Rest already,” since many of us are bad at heeding the weather’s hints.

It’s noteworthy that until relatively recently, many cultures observed the new year in March. These early spring days, with their “delicious radiance” do seem a perfect time for making resolutions, for birthing books into the world, and perhaps for opening new businesses and starting ventures. What might the rest of our work lives look like if could take our natural seasonal inclinations into account?

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Do you adjust your work with the seasons? Could you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Ice Storm

By Abby Quillen

The Pacific Northwest got hit by another epic storm last weekend, which dumped close to ten inches of snow then covered everything with a thick layer of ice. The ice isn’t as fun to play in as snow, but it makes for beautiful photos.

I couldn’t get enough of the brilliant pink buds encased in ice. What a wondrous image for February, when one day we were fawning over the first crocuses of the season and the next we were gliding through our neighborhood on cross-country skis.

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Saying Goodbye to a Friend

By Abby Quillen

This is a guest post by my sister, Columbine Quillen. Last week she lost her white German Shepard Sierra, who was a sweet, happy, loveable member of our family for twelve years. Here she recounts some of their adventures and reflects on life’s big questions. (Plus, everyone loves a good bear story, right?) I hope you enjoy it.

I’m shocked by my melancholy. Perhaps this loss is hitting me so hard because Sierra was such a fixture in our lives — not only a friend and a companion, but a part of the house. A part of the neighborhood. She was often the first face I saw each day poking her head into the bedroom.

I met Sierra because she was (my future husband) Brad’s dog, and Brad had a crush on me the summer of 2002. I was living with my parents in Colorado and running races. I often ran 10 to 15 hard miles in the mountains in the morning and then mountain biked another 20 miles in the afternoon. Sierra had as much energy as I did, so Brad often asked me to take her with me. I didn’t always want to, because Sierra was a bundle of energy who had sharp teeth and didn’t understand acceptable play. But my mom didn’t like me being alone in the backcountry, so I always agreed.

That was the beginning of many miles spent alone with Sierra in the wilderness. One time we climbed a peak in the Sangre de Christos, some of the remotest of the Colorado Rockies, and we went down the wrong drainage. We must have bushwhacked two to three miles of 2,000-3,000 feet of decent. When we were above timberline I could see where we were and which way to go, but when we dropped into the trees I felt scared and exhausted. Sierra seemed to know the way, though, and I kept with her. Eventually we found a small creek which turned out to be a tributary to a creek that was on the hiking trail. Sierra was a phenomenal athlete and sure-footed backcountry mate. I always felt safer when she was with me — except once.

When she was still young, we were running on a steep trail near my hometown. At the top of the climb where the trail levels out, Sierra wandered off into the woods and rustled up a bear! Talk about motivation to run! Sierra looked at me with the most gleeful look, like “Yeah! Look what I just did!” We got out of there as fast as we could, although I don’t think the bear had much interest in us. Some old ranchers told me that bears don’t like people or domesticated dogs, so if they know you are coming they will get out of the way. “Make your dog noisy,” they advised. So I put jingle bobbles on her collar, and we never saw another bear or house cat again.

When I met Sierra, she did not swim. She would only wade out to her knees. This drove Brad crazy. He gave up his promising career at Hewlett Packard to live his dream of creating the greatest database of whitewater river runs in the nation. He had traveled all over the country running whitewater. Being on a river was the most important thing to him, and his dog would not swim! Brad tried to get her to swim by taking her out on a pier on a lake and dropping her off. However, that made her even more timid around water and made Brad seem like a real jerk every time he told the story.

In the summer of 2003 Brad decided to teach me how to whitewater paddle, which to this day is one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. We would go out to a lake so that I could practice my strokes and roll. Sierra was not happy when both of us were out in the water. She’d pace the shore barking a pitiful bark that made it sound like we were poking her with hot coals. We kept calling out to her, and finally one day she came in. It was the cutest thing in the world. She was so stressed out, holding her head up high. She swam to our boats and then swam circles around us like a shark. Later, when Brad was teaching me how to surf in a kayaking hole, Sierra became a beautiful river swimmer, using the current to propel her across the water. It was amazing to watch.

The last few years have been challenging. Law school has a special way of beating up and tearing apart the human soul. My father passed away from a heart attack in the middle of the night. My grandmother died. My long-time colleague who I also enjoyed paddling with died of cancer. Another friend who appeared to be perfect health died for no explicable reason at the age of 27.

When these tragedies struck, I was not surrounded by a community of support and nourishment. We had moved to a town away from everyone we knew so I could go to law school. I was taking an over-loaded course schedule while working and couldn’t lean on my friends at school, since they also had no free time and were trying not to buckle under the enormous pressure. Every day I got up and forced myself out the door. But I was depleted by the end of the day. I’d trudge through the door, and Sierra would bound up to greet me. A rock in times of hardship. The greatest listener who ever existed. A place of warmth and reassurance.

Sierra had the gift to make those around her smile and feel good. A few months ago Brad left his bike at the train station, and he asked me if I could pick it up. It’s a couple of miles over to the train station, so Sierra and I walked there. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, and all of the trees were full with golden and fiery red leaves. On the way back I rode Brad’s bike, and Sierra trotted behind me. Everyone who passed beamed at me, but I knew their smiles weren’t for me. When I glanced behind me, there was Sierra smiling the brightest smile, her ears back, running her old dog teeter totter trot with her jingle bobbles swaying back and forth with each step. The sun beamed down on her, golden leaves raining in the background. What a magical sight to behold.

With all of the loss I’ve experienced in the last few years, I can’t help but ponder life’s big questions. Every culture has stories to explain why we’re here, what we’re supposed to be working toward, and what happens to us when we die. I don’t know which story is right. But I do know that everyone who I’ve been close to has qualities that amaze me. And maybe if I can incorporate more of those qualities into my life on a day to day basis, a little bit of that person can live on.

My father was an amazing storyteller who was gifted at building community. My colleague was an amazing whitewater boater who never said no to a paddle. My 27-year-old friend had a gorgeous smile that she gave away continuously without ever expecting anything in return. Sierra was always ready to go. She had a great vigor for life. She lived life to its fullest and always found something to enjoy, no matter the circumstances. Certainly all of my friends, and my dad, gave more to the world than these simple qualities, but these are some of the things I hope I can embrace in my life and keep shining onto the world because of their inspiration.

To Sierra: Rest in peace. You made me a better person, and for that I will always be thankful.

Columbine Quillen wrote this essay. She and her husband Brad live in Portland, Oregon, and she will graduate from law school this spring.

Photos by Columbine Quillen.

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Celebrate the First Day of Winter

By Abby Quillen

Saturday is the first day of winter and the shortest day of 2013. Seasonal shifts can be the perfect time to take a day off from routine or the holiday frenzy. Here are a few simple ideas for celebrating the new season:

Observe

Make a point of watching the sunrise and sunset. You probably won’t even have to set an alarm. At our house, it will rise at 7:44 and set at 4:37 on Saturday. (The good news is longer, brighter days are coming.) You can find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

Wander

Take a hike, go cross-country skiing, or go for a walk and look for signs of the season. Listen to winter’s music. Compare winter’s textures: dry bark, soggy leaves, spongy moss. Notice winter’s smoky scents.

Give

Find gifts for each other from nature. Exchange small handmade gifts. Make maple caramel corn for friends or neighbors. The key here is to keep it simple.

Feast

Serve up your favorite winter crops: beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips. We are fans of stuffed squash this time of the year, and I’m gearing up to try my first efforts at homemade sauerkraut. Lighting candles can turn an ordinary meal into a celebration.

Reflect

The key to seasonal celebrations is to make them simple and relaxing. The last thing most of us need is another stressful winter tradition. Our family’s celebrations are casual and fun, but we always enjoy pausing to notice nature’s cyclical dance.

How will you celebrate the first day of winter? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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August Field Notes

By Abby Quillen

August must have been the shortest month in history. At least, that’s how it felt for us as we swirled through a whirlwind of conferences, parties, birthdays, and projects. Fortunately, we also took some time out for a much-needed relaxing family camping trip just a few feet from the Pacific Ocean and a lovely hike in one of our favorite spots. I managed to capture some photographic evidence from those adventures, which I’ll share below.

What happened to the big website revamp, you may be wondering. Well, change is coming! But, for a myriad of reasons, I’m postponing it until after I launch my dad’s anthology in November. Stay tuned….

For now, I’m excited to be back to regular posting. I missed you all!