Winter

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Winter is a time to preserve and protect Yang energy. It’s a time to allow ourselves to fall back into our safety of deep rest and restoration. During the downtime of Winter, our roots are nurtured and our energy is refueled. Winter gives us permission to enjoy the much-needed reprieve from all the activity of the previous seasons. It’s a real opportunity to check in and tend to things a bit closer to home.

Wintertime represents the pinnacle of Yin, darkness, cold, slowness, and inward energy. This is why we must protect Yang, that spark of light and warmth. Summer represents ultimate Yang, warmth, movement, and expansive qualities. During the summer season, we alternatively must protect Yin.

The coziness of wintertime calls for more self-reflection, quiet time, reading, writing, meditating, and other soul-nourishing activities. Winter is a time to slow down and feed ourselves both physically and spiritually. What are some of your favorite ways to celebrate this season?

Water Element

Sensitive, emotional, changeable, receptive, empathetic, connected to everything, open, indomitable, imaginative, reflective, mutable, timeless, mysterious, strong.

Winter embodies the Water element. In Wood Becomes Water, Reichstein says "Water symbolizes both life and death: it is the womb from which all life emerges and the abyss to which it returns." Much like when we dip in the ocean or suspend ourselves in a river, these ritual baths engender birth. It's a timeless suspension, peaceful. It's the death of individuality and a merging with oneness. Its action is non-action and has no form. You are in between worlds; the dream space where ideas are born. Our Water years (menopause) contain wisdom distilled from all our life experiences.

Water teaches us about shape-shifting, adaptability, depth, change, creativity, rest, and reflection. Through our lived experiences, hardships, and triumphs, our wisdom serves to nourish the deepest aspects of ourselves. We learn to change and adapt with ease. Wisdom is held in our bones and life teaches us to breathe from the deepest, most truthful parts of ourselves. The most beautiful thing about water is its cyclical nature, just like ours.

A few ways to connect to your water element:

1. Listen deeply to someone.

2. Have a day with no schedule & no rush.

3. Take a moment to hug someone important to you.

4. Be around large bodies of water.

5. Submerge or dip a part of your body into water.

Kidneys

During the winter, it’s important to nourish our kidneys which hold our body’s most basic and fundamental substance, Jing Essence. Our kidney organs and meridian represent the Water element within, along with the Urinary Bladder. In the dark hours of Winter, storage is vital. After the Yang seasons of activity, we are able to rest and heal, storing and protecting our Jing essence. We are cultivating our fire within so that Yang can be born out of the Yin again, fully restored in the springtime. Again, nature can teach us how to commune with our deepest potential during Winter slumber.

Kidney Qi is heightened during the winter months and is primarily responsible for the conservation of Jing-Essence or vitality, the energetic resource necessary for growth, development, and reproduction functioning. Protecting and hiding our Jing Essence in the winter months prevents us from sickness in the springtime.

Our Jing Essence

You are made of Essence. In Chinese Medicine, they call it Jing. For those of us with menstrual cycles, Jing cycles every 7 years. Dr. Lia Andrews describes it as “concentrated creative power that is passed to us from our ancestors and parents through the egg and sperm; through our DNA. Our Jing acts as our reserves of energy, and is related to our hormonal and reproductive functioning. The quantity and quality of our Jing dictate our ability to manifest in this world.”

Menstrual blood and sperm are manifestations of Jing Essence. When we menstruate we lose a little Jing. This is why there is so much emphasis on caring for ourselves during our inner winter bleeding phase. During the Earth’s winter season, our Jing congeals and concentrates. We can align with this natural draw down and inwards by reserving our energies and resting more. Jing is stored in our Kidney/Adrenal system. We want to be cautious of pulling too much from our reserves and borrowing from our own wells of health and longevity. Think of your Jing Essence and Kidney/Adrenals as your savings account that you will be living off of for the rest of your life.

Emotions of Wintertime

Fear is the emotion of Winter and the Water element because the dark cold months are about survival. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the inherent purpose of the Kidney is to store or contain. A balanced Kidney Qi within us keeps us alert to our surroundings, prompts us to act, and keeps us safe. When we are imbalanced fear can manifest in a variety of ways.

Whenever fear tries to focus our energy on what is missing in our lives, we can divert our energy to what is abundant. What do you have that you are grateful for? It’s healing to first acknowledge our fear. It has many lessons to teach us. Another beautiful way to work with fear is to do your best to think and be in the present instead of thinking too much about the future or the past. When we anchor in the present moment, we can tap into our infinite source of peace.

What are you most grateful for?

Menstruation Dark Moon time

Menstruation is our inner-winter time. During the first few days of bleeding our hormones are the lowest they will be all cycle. This is a necessary pause at empty and a moment of quiet when the internal conversation that is usually happening within our endocrine system is on pause. This mirrors the quietude and the stillness of Wintertime and can often be a reprieve from the hormonal fluctuation of the rest of the cycle.

Just as the death of Winter is essential to the rebirth of Spring, this menstrual shedding is a necessary period for resting and releasing which makes space for the creativity and vitality that is to come. Self-care for Winter can teach us a lot about how our bodies want to be cared for while we bleed: warmth, slowness, rest, and nervous system nourishment. Just like the Earth’s Winter phase, our own inner Winter can be an opportunity for stripping away distractions and getting to the core of our inner wisdom. This truth can come in many ways, what’s important is that we make the space to listen, reflect and be with that voice.

Our bleeding bodies also need extra tenderness and care when we are bleeding and just like in Winter: broths and slow-cooked foods, warming and adaptogenic herbs, and being easy on our systems can support us through this sacred and healthy release process.

Embodying The Crone

The Crone is all about going inward and connecting to our visions and dreams. As the outer shell and body age, the soul ripens. What we lose and allow to die creates fertile soil to create something new. The blood no longer sheds and leaves the body. We retain it, concentrate it, and use this newfound circulating energy towards manifesting our birth into our Second Spring. Our intuition grows even stronger as we use our wisdom to manage our energy in the most efficient ways. The Crone embodies our return to the womby waters as a means to lean into deep nourishing rest, release, and renewal. We allow the death of many parts of ourselves so that we can come into the second half of our life, reborn.

* Even if you don’t bleed anymore, you can still sync to your cycle by choosing the days you need to rest on, through an understanding of active and quieter parts of the moon cycle and how you feel through them.

Love,

Sam and Kris ~ The Way of Yin Team

Deepening into the Yin of Wintertime