Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Wintering explores how to care for and repair ourselves during life's difficult periods. Katherine May draws on her own experience when her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own health issues forced her to leave her job. Rather than simply enduring these circumstances, she examines how to embrace the opportunities they offer. May weaves together personal narrative with insights from literature, mythology, and the natural world. She references solstice celebrations, hibernation, C.S. Lewis, Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters, and arctic sailing to illustrate the transformative power of rest and retreat. The book invites readers to reconsider their relationship with fallow times—periods of dislocation caused by illness, loss, breakups, or job loss. May argues for active acceptance of sadness and finding nourishment in deep retreat. She locates joy in winter's quiet beauty and understands life as cyclical rather than linear, offering a philosophy for transforming hardship into a passage toward renewal.