[psst! there’s a giveaway at the bottom of this post!]
I wonder if there is a way for humans to embrace torpor - that ‘almost hibernation’ thing that bears are so good at. I look back at winter and see a murky haze of things not done.
During winter I became more aware of my creatureliness. The way the soft animal of my body needed more sleep and languid movement. The way hot bath water called to me and I took on layers of fat and blanket to protect me from the cold. The way my mouth wanted spice and heat. The way that, when I couldn’t afford to heat my flat, I got small; the idea of moving from the spot I’d warmed with hot water bottles and my own body heat seemed like great madness. Who would risk going outside?
And then the clocks changed and the magpies built a nest at the same level as my third floor flat. I walked up a hill and saw my favourite waterfall for the first time since autumn. I went to a museum and cried. After not ‘working’ for months my soul is spilling over with the desire to create – stories, jigsaws, embroidery, meals, hikes, potions, drawings. I’m listening to music again. I’m buying physical books from actual shops. Some new life is beginning to appear and I’m annoyed. Why can’t it always be like this? Why do I have to have these great stretches of creative winter?
Winter – both the physical season and the wintering of my creativity – meant pausing, even though that’s not what I chose.
I meant to write, but couldn’t.
I meant to walk every day, but couldn’t.
I meant to post substacks, but couldn’t.
I meant to make a website, but couldn’t.
I meant to do - and not do - so many things, but couldn’t.
*whispers* A seed means to grow, and it can.
A seed has to bear the ice and wind in order to soften its tough husk, so that when the ground is warmer and thaw lets the rain penetrate, the seed can germinate. Winter brings new life, it just looks an awful lot like death.
It’s time to dig up the turtles
I’m really good at TikTok. Not good at posting on it or anything like that, no, I’m good at scrolling through, for hours. I have recently found myself on MedTok where nurses share their tips for fellow nurses – I watch videos on how to effectively insert an IV cannula, how to know whether an NG tube is placed correctly and I nod in agreement when they describe the differences between day shift nurses and night shift nurses. It’s odd, it’s sweet, it’s utterly fascinating (to me). And then, one day I found myself on TurtleTok. Not just TurtleTok, but TurtleExhumationTok.
A smiling woman with a trowel looks to camera and offers an irresistible invitation:
‘let’s dig up the turtles.’
Had I stumbled across some macabre ritual that I shouldn’t have? Where would this lead? It’s only a few steps from turtle to human exhumation, surely?
Turns out that this is what you have to do when your pet turtle hibernates. You bury them at the start of winter and they just plop into the ground, buried alive, waiting for spring.
It seemed a bit horrific.
And yet, these muddy turtles weren’t killed by this experience, or even especially bothered about being covered in caked-on soil. I found myself envying them. A whole oblivious winter. That sounded like bliss.
And then Easter weekend passed and I thought about the turtles and the torpor again. Even Jesus needed a break before emerging scarred and beautiful and I realised that while I saw hibernation as an escape, it’s not that at all. The work is done underground, behind the stone, in the den. The work is being done while it looks for all the world like death and mourning. The work isn’t the exhumation, it’s what happens during the days, weeks, months in the underworld. Persephone knew. Of course she did.
Creative seasons
We may not always work with the physical seasons, but I do think that many creatives have internal equinoxes that we are neither aware of, nor in control of. When we’re in the hibernation it feels like prison rather than rest and we believe we will never leave. Then, when we emerge and scrape away the mud, we see how beautiful torpor was and how much we needed it. We wish we had leaned in more to the natural way of things and trusted that all was OK.
Waiting and patience seem to be the true constants of creativity and yet they terrify us. How do you wait with the certainty that the waiting is not death – it’s not a sign that everything has gone wrong and all your magic has died? How can we trust that the pause is the source of the power?
Do the seasons affect you and your creativity?
How does waiting impact your feelings about your work?
Does the idea of pausing attract or repel you?
How would you describe your current creative season?
Share your experiences in the comments and we will all benefit from one another’s wisdom and generosity.
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Yes hibernation is definitely a thing, though I almost never recognise it until I'm out the other side of it! But I'm learning, and this year I let go of the stress I usually hold through the winter about not writing or being creative. I was so very relieved to feel the urge, to step outside myself & feel warmth on my skin!
I've used the code to book onto the Writers Festival because I've been looking for something to help me with an idea I've got for a fiction book! Very excited to be joining in.
This really resonates and echoes Katherine May’s ‘Wintering’ too which I found really comforting. What’s hard is naturally submitting to this in our always switched on, productivity culture. I’m trying to trust that in fallow periods there is a percolation of creativity going on and that’s it’s just as important, but it is hard. I love the turtles analogy.