Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Katherine May describes Wintering as “a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.”
We’ve all experienced these times in life, but wintering is a quiet act of defiance in a world that never stops.
It is an example of gentle rebellion in the face of the perpetual demand to be productive and useful. It’s choosing rest over empty hustle, care over competition, and creativity over endless productivity.
May suggests that we often treat these winters as something to hide or ignore. However, embracing them is “a radical act—choosing to slow down, letting spare time expand, and getting enough rest. If you shed this skin, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel raw. But if you don’t, the old skin will harden around you.”
This resonates deeply with what we do in The Return to Serenity Island.
🏝️ Join me this year to rest, explore, and play: serenityisland.me
🔗 Full Notes: the-haven.co/embracing-wintering-on-serenity-island
Katherine May describes Wintering as “a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.”
We’ve all experienced these times in life, but wintering is a quiet act of defiance in a world that never stops.
It is an example of gentle rebellion in the face of the perpetual demand to be productive and useful. It’s choosing rest over empty hustle, care over competition, and creativity over endless productivity.
May suggests that we often treat these winters as something to hide or ignore. However, embracing them is “a radical act—choosing to slow down, letting spare time expand, and getting enough rest. If you shed this skin, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel raw. But if you don’t, the old skin will harden around you.”
This resonates deeply with what we do in The Return to Serenity Island.
🏝️ Join me this year to rest, explore, and play: serenityisland.me
🔗 Full Notes: the-haven.co/embracing-wintering-on-serenity-island
