A winter outing
A guided meditation to connect with nature
I hope you enjoy this guided meditation to welcome in winter. For this, and more notes on nature and magic, please consider supporting my work by subscribing or sharing with a friend.
It’s one of those days where you feel compelled to go outside. It’s been rainy for longer than you can remember. Dark in the mornings, and dark when you arrive home. But today is different. It’s the perfect sort of early winter day where you need to wear sunglasses as its so bright, but also your warmest coat and hat to keep out the fierce chill.
As you head down the road, you become aware that a choice is in front of you. Do you turn left, into town or right to the countryside? Before you realise, you’re heading out on the path out of town, lined with hawthorn and surrounded by vast fields.
On your way down the path you feel how long it has been since you have been outside, an ache here and there but you become aware of your body and notice how it feels today.
Nature is here to greet you. Along the path you meet teasel seed heads standing proudly against a bright blue skyline. There are lichen growing golden cups on a fallen branch of the grandmother elder. Foxgloves, waiting for their spotlight in spring are waiting, frozen at the side of the path.
The puddles along the path are now frozen, with crystalline flower patterns just below the surface, becoming visible as the edges start to melt.
The further you travel along the path, the quieter the noise of the town becomes. Further away from the busy energy of the road, and deeper into the calm of nature on a winter’s day.
A little way further along, you have another choice; keep heading along the path or dip into the wood, around trees with ancient roots anchoring them to Mother Earth. You have created enough space along the way so far that you can hear your inner child calling you to go the ‘secret’ way. The light is a little different down here, more filtered, under a thinning canopy of yellowing leaves.
When you emerge you are greeted by rose hips hanging in the hedgerow like fairy lights. They are frosted but still gloriously red, a sign that the moon before Yule is almost upon us.
You look up to check where the sun is and feel its warmth on your cheek. You can sense that it is low in the sky and soon it will be time to turn back. At once, a lucky black cat crosses your path and runs along to the community garden up ahead. Considering this as a sign from the universe you chuckle. Go on then, just a little longer.
When you arrive at the community garden, there is no one there. It is late on a winter’s afternoon and although the sky is bright, the sun is sitting ever lower in the sky. Someone has been here recently though. There is a metal bin with holes in and a chimney at the top, with smoke trickling out from the last of a garden fire. You walk over to the sensory garden, soft herbs, sweet scented lavender and of course rosemary, for protection and remembrance growing proudly, verdant amongst the fading annuals.
There is a space up ahead. Under a now-bare arbour. Again, a choice to be made. A clear space, a bench to lie upon, and a selection of seats.
Once you have chosen, all becomes still. You feel the blessing of the warmth of the sun on your skin, and you are filled with a sense of spaciousness. The light of the sun flows down upon you in golden rays opening your heart. You awaken a sensation within yourself, you notice it, name it and choose to sit with it here for a while.
You become absorbed in the beautiful energy of the space, the brightness, the cold and the warmth, a round of robins singing in the woodland behind you.
Although you long to stay there a little while longer, a chill and a rustle of leaves bring you back to the garden and remind you that tonight is the moon before Yule, and the sun will not be there for much longer. Grateful, you turn back and walk along the brook, freezing cold and fast flowing, carrying you home into the sunset.
Thank you for joining me in this guided meditation. As you sit awhile, write down how you feel. What was the feeling you experienced in the garden? Use that as a journal prompt and revisit the garden and the feeling whenever you need to. I hope this has brought some spaciousness to you and I wish you the brightest of blessings.