Winter & Remembering Our Connection
The season asks us to slow down, soften our effort, and listen more closely. When we loosen our grip, beauty has space to reveal itself.
When I began my Mindful Outdoor Leadership training, I met people who lived in rural places, many of them guides whose days were spent in forests and along mountain trails. I felt a calling to strengthen my relationship with the natural world, which ultimately led me to the training. And yet, part of me wondered whether that kind of connection was truly possible given my life in the city.
When I was a kid, I spent nearly all of my time outdoors, wandering through the woods and a crab apple orchard outside of my building. That connection felt effortless back then. It wasn’t something I had to think about or cultivate intentionally. It was simply the way I lived.
During my training, my teachers offered a simple reminder that stayed with me: nature is alive everywhere. It slowly shifted my perspective and my relationship to the place I live. I came to understand that I didn’t need a mountain range or forest to feel connected, I simply needed to pay attention. Even when modern life felt fast and disconnected, I kept returning to this idea and allowed it to shape the way I showed up.
The contrast between modern life and our essential connection to the earth, our bodies, and the natural rhythms that sustain us is what inspired Rustic Heart Wellness. Over time, I’ve learned that reconnection doesn’t happen all at once. It unfolds slowly, over seasons and years, as we begin to notice the subtleties of our environment and inner landscape.
When we spend time truly getting to know a place, visiting it often, watching it change, learning its patterns, it becomes part of us. That’s what I knew as a child. I wandered the same paths every day until I knew every tree branch and stone by heart. They felt like old friends, and being with them felt like home.
Rediscovering Belonging
Over the years, and especially throughout my healing and sobriety journey, now over seven years, I’ve learned that reconnection happens through small, consistent acts of awareness. Not through striving or effort, but through attention. And, a series of ordinary moments over the last year deepened this understanding for me.
Earlier this year, I found a nursing mother squirrel who had passed away beneath the tree in my yard. Her five babies were still small and unsure. I buried her beneath the tree and began visiting daily. For nearly three months, I sat beneath that same tree at the same time each day, offering food and quiet company.
One evening, as the last squirrel climbed the tree toward the nest, a hawk swooped down and carried it away. You could hear the beating of the hawk’s wings through the leaves, and the squirrel’s cry, it was so incredibly sad.
My first response was total sorrow and failed responsibility to keep them safe. In that moment, I wasn’t thinking beyond what I had witnessed. But as the moment settled, I began to sense the larger cycle at play. The hawk wasn’t cruel, it was simply being a hawk, feeding itself or its young. In many ways, many people are not used to witnessing moments like this so closely.
It made me think about loss more broadly, about how the universe holds patterns and purposes that we can’t always see from our limited perspective. Nature isn’t tidy or easy, but it is profoundly wise. What I witnessed wasn’t separate from me, it was a reflection of the same mystery that moves through all of us.
Over time, the squirrels that remained grew comfortable with me. Now, they eat from my hand. Such a simple act, yet it holds something sacred. It’s a reminder that connection isn’t something we chase. It grows slowly, through presence, trust and time.
We often say we “feel connected to nature” because we spend time outdoors, walking, hiking, or gathering with others. Those experiences are meaningful, but they’re often active, social or destination focused.
The kind of connection I’m speaking about is quieter. It’s found in stillness, observation, and allowing the world to reveal itself rather than moving through it.
Listening to the Season
As we move through winter, a season often associated with endings, I’m reminded of the importance of listening. Listening to the earth, our bodies, and the quiet intelligence that’s always been present. What we often fear as death or loss is not absence, but transformation. Even when things change and recede, presence remains.
This becomes clear when we create enough space and stillness to observe. After the first big snowstorm this year, I stepped outside to find the entire landscape transformed. A bright white blanket covered the ground and clung to every tree branch. The air was crisp and fresh, sunlight sparkling off the snow beneath a wide blue sky. It felt like seeing everything for the very first time, quiet, magical and filled with a childlike awe.
So often, we treat winter as something to endure, telling ourselves its too cold and dark, a season to move through as quickly as possible. We learn to prefer certain seasons and resist others. But when we’re willing to befriend what winter offers - its stillness, quiet and depth - and step beyond our usual patterns, we’re invited into a fuller experience of the year and ourselves.
This season also asks something specific of us. Slowing down is not a failure of will, but an expression of intelligence. Each year, I try to listen more and do less. I rest longer, move more intentionally, and align with the natural rhythms this time of year invites.