This year I will be running my first retreat day, with Laura Murphy of mtc2. I will be publishing regular posts and other material about it, on my new blog ‘Reframe the View’. This blog will continue to be focussed on art making and learning. There’s an extract below from today’s post. If you enjoy it and would like to read about wellbeing and ways to nurture and support yourself, please go to ‘Reframe the View’ by clicking the button below.

The Stillness of Midwinter

Today is a grey overcast day. It’s very quiet at home, with the sound of sporadic rain pattering against the glass and the ocasional breathy resonance of the windblown chimney. Not much is moving outside. Our feline neighbours are glimpsed darting across the garden and are gone -back home to curl up somewhere warm. Bulbs rest in the earth, their green spears nosing through when there’s a warmer day, but stopped when it’s cold and grey. Water is pooled on the meadows and lammas lands, with fleets of overwintering gulls, cormorants and the resident ducks and geese sailing in the shallow water. Twigs drip, tree trunks stained black with water. Their fat buds wait -for spring.

We are surrounded at the moment by stuff about renewal, reinvention, get fitter, get healthier and make resolutions. In the deep quiet of midwinter this increasongly feels out of step to me. Over recent years I’ve been paying more attention to the seasonal cycles and wondering how to align myself with them.

To read more from ‘Reframe the View, click below.