Winter Solstice: A Pause at the Root
The winter solstice marks the longest night of the year — a quiet hinge point where the light pauses before returning. It isn’t a celebration of darkness so much as an acknowledgment of it: a recognition that rest, stillness, and unseen work are not empty states, but necessary ones.
In the forest, this is not a dormant time. Beneath frozen ground and fallen leaves, mycelium continues its slow, deliberate work — connecting, redistributing, preparing. Nothing above the surface suggests growth, yet everything below is laying the groundwork for what comes next.
Mushrooms remind us of this every year.
They don’t rush. They don’t force themselves into the open. They wait until conditions are right — until the system beneath them is ready to support emergence. The fruiting body is brief, but the network that sustains it is patient and enduring.
The solstice invites a similar kind of attention. Not the pressure to set intentions or make declarations, but the permission to notice where energy is being conserved, where quiet work is happening out of view. To understand that slowing down is not falling behind.
In the kitchen, this season often turns us toward what’s already been gathered and kept. Jars on shelves, grains and salts, dried mushrooms tucked away for later — a kind of pantry wisdom that mirrors the forest’s own way of storing energy for lean months. Cooking becomes less about novelty and more about care: warm bowls, familiar flavours, food that nourishes rather than impresses.
These small rituals matter. Stirring a pot, seasoning thoughtfully, sharing a simple meal by candlelight — they root us in continuity. They remind us that tending doesn’t require abundance, only attention.
As the light returns, increment by increment, it does so without urgency. The forest doesn’t hurry it along. Neither should we.
This solstice, we’re honouring the unseen work — the resting, the recalibrating, the careful keeping of what sustains us. May the coming light find its way to what’s ready.