This is my sixth year of mindfully attempting to love winter for what it is. For as long as I can remember, I have found ways to cast this season aside, but it seems impractical for a number of reasons. 1.) I love Ohio and I want to live in the midwest for a long time. If I did not live here, I would live somewhere even colder (the northeast or Canada). 2.) The hatred does not stem from anything productive. It either falls under the wide umbrella of childhood contrarianism (t-shirts and shorts in below freezing weather) or unrelated personal issues (SAD, loneliness, my relationship to cold weather that could be solved with proper layering). There are intrinsic properties of the season that bring me natural sorrows: the sun goes down way too early, illness feels omnipresent because of close quarters, those two minutes of sitting in your car in below freezing temperatures while it attempts to warm up. It’s not that the silver lining is impossible to grasp, but it certainly feels out of reach around mid February.
I’ve been getting really into the lunar cycles. I try to track my relationship to each lunation, and make a list of goals for each synodic month. Somewhere on this page I will keep a record of these lunations and my respective goals. The most important goal of this astronomical season, though, is to have some compassion for winter, just a little bit. Even though the disdain for winter feels unsurmountable, each year little pieces of negativity fall off, and with enough practice I can give it the compassion it deserves. Tune into my website to watch me write and catalog all winter long.