Hello Ramblers,

As I write to you at 4:30 in the afternoon, I am startled to find the warm glow of the lamplight is already insufficient. After weeks of autumn sunsets creeping, inching, crawling earlier into the day, I look out my front window to find headlights and streetlamps dazzling their astigmatic halos against a deep navy backdrop. We’ve watched the changes come on slowly: the cooling days, lengthening nights, shifting clocks, and the falling leaves in their vibrant dance. And yet, despite all the signs, it feels as though the earth has surrendered to darkness all at once. 

I had been content to romanticise the melancholy slowness of early autumn. But now, it seems, winter has caught up to us. We are no longer emerging into the in-between; we are now firmly in its grasp. 

Katherine holds the particular tension of November with curiosity. Read these pages too quickly and, as in life, you may feel confused by her seemingly contradictory admissions: she is at home in winter, and then — in the very next breath —she feels ill-prepared for it. Slow down with me here. May gives us permission to acknowledge the coexistence of our disjointed human perspectives, to recognise that contradictions are not failures of clarity but markers of honest insight. 

Metamorphosis 

The profound surrender of this chapter is something I didn’t fully appreciate until rereading it for this post. When we encounter struggle, illness, hardship, or adversity, we often default to stories of triumph and transformation. The alchemist, the hero, the fighter. We speak in metaphors of battle: Darwinian grit, hero versus kryptonite, good prevailing over evil. In order to make someone admirable, we strip away the parts that make them human.

And then we wonder why our own very human stories bear so little resemblance to the polished protagonists of feel-good narratives.

I’m not suggesting that stories of resistance have no place. But I am suggesting that the drab, uncomfortable tale belongs beside them because, in our darker seasons, we may need a mirror as much as we need myth.

In this chapter, May challenges the idea that we can brute force our way through winter with grit and graft. Instead, she invites us to soften to its subtleties: the glimpses of life stirring beneath the surface, mulching quietly in the hidden corners of the forest. Winter is going to be uncomfortable, yes, but not gratuitously so. It asks us to notice the world around us and to accept that loss is woven into growth, not as punishment, but as process. 

Amid the transformation of winter — the unwelcome change — is an abundance of life.

As we oscillate between embracing the cold and shielding from its frost, our resilience grows.  Not only in the moments we step beyond our comfort zone, but in the moments we simply wait it out. November holds us in “ . . . the tension between how we begin, and what we become.” 

Consider your transitions from childhood to adolescence, and again as you emerged into adulthood: what you had to reluctantly leave behind, what you were eager to shed, and the tender space that opened for new growth. May asks us to let go of the idea that life follows a singular, straight line, and instead imagine a meandering woodland path: expanding and contracting with the seasons, unfolding in a somewhat predictable pattern of growth, maturity, abscission, and renewal. 

If you follow me to two-thirds of the way down page 80 through the asterisk on page 81, you’ll find one of Wintering's most enchanting passages: a delicate yet firm acknowledgement of the relationship between endings and beginnings. 

Yes, as we approach the end of any season, we must tend to our grief. But grief can also obscure our vision. Even then, whether we notice it or not, the blossoms and leaves we’ve lost are already on the forest floor, working with flora, fauna, and fungi to transmute nutrients back to the roots. Our branches and hollows offer refuge and nourishment for insects, mice, and deer. 

We celebrate the blooms and blossoms of spring and summer, but it is in winter that we are given an intimate glimpse of what the wood is really made of. 

It is far from dead. It is, in fact, the life and soul of the wood . . . Life goes on, abundantly, in winter. And this is where changes are made that usher us into future glories.

Slumber

Before we wander into “Slumber,” I want to pause with the tenderness of that last line: “future glories.” November in Wintering is full of these quiet provocations: soft suggestions that growth might be occurring even when we can’t see it, even when we’re certain we’ve gone dormant for good. 

We’ve acknowledged, prepared, overextended ourselves in our attempts to “outdo” winter, accepted, and still find ourselves waiting, apprehensively, for the worst of the storm. Now what? 

A part of me hoped that this would be the moment Katherine invites us to hibernate and blissfully ignore the ice beginning to form on the windowsill in the morning. Another part of me knew better. This is not the time to escape; this is where we endure. This is where we keep holding the tension. 

The dark days call in cosy hobbies and early bedtimes. They can also draw in heavy clouds of worry, criticism, and sleeplessness. We may resist late summer’s foreshadowing of cool evenings, yet also feel relief at the prospect of a break from the bustling harvest season. As the saying goes, “too much of a good thing”: we may reach the edges of our tolerance for stillness and find ourselves restless, even as the thought of putting our coat and wellies on to step back out into the cold, drizzly night remains equally unappealing. 

Just like the dormouse, we must listen to our bodies and recalibrate toward balance. It’s natural to pull back, conserve our energy, and seek stimulation in quieter, cosier pursuits. It is also necessary to keep moving and to accept discomfort as part of the experience of showing up for ourselves and others. In these small acts of holding our resistance, we learn we can carry more than we anticipated, and perhaps realise it wasn’t so bad after all. And if it was bad, then at least it taught us something in the process. 

“Certainty is a dead space, in which there is no more room to grow. Wavering is painful. I’m glad to be travelling between the two.”

My supervisor consistently and patiently reminds me of Pantañjali’s Yoga Sutra 2.46: the balance between effort and ease. In this chapter, May reflects on her experience of insomnia and the effort it took to reframe “broken sleep” as “the watch”. She not only offers the reader a brief history lesson but opens a door into a dreamlike space where nighttime wakefulness becomes an undemanding, peaceful period of intimate, quiet contemplation.

Katherine describes picking up books and leafing through the pages without the pressure of choosing the “right” tome or reading it from cover to cover with a critical eye. She finds a restorative parallel between sleep and the wandering, tangential nature of creative thought. When we resist the tension of winter’s approach entirely, we close ourselves off to the opportunities its winds usher in. But when we hold our resistance in one hand and gently open the other, we find space for some sort of balance that lives in between.

“Over and again, we find that winter offers us liminal spaces to inhabit. Yet we still refuse them. The work of the cold season is to learn to welcome them.”

Under the Lamplight

As November settles around us with long nights, bare branches, and muted palettes, these chapters ask us to soften our grip and listen closely to what is shifting within. To honour the small surrenders that make space for deeper change. If “Metamorphosis” teaches us that endings are woven into beginnings, “Slumber” reminds us that the dark is not empty but quietly alive.

Slumber isn’t about withdrawal; it’s about attunement. It’s about noticing when our internal landscape is asking for a gentler pace, a deeper exhale, a heavier quilt, a softer morning. In these moments, “Metamorphosis” invites us to consider that beneath the surface, we are metabolising experiences in ways we may not recognise until much later. Integration often happens in the half-light, in the quiet hours, in the stillness we assume to be empty but is anything but.

Perhaps that’s why these chapters leave me with a sense of exhale. A reminder that our bodies know things before our minds catch up. A reassurance that rest is neither laziness nor avoidance, but a kind of metamorphosis in itself: a pause that makes way for becoming.

And so, when the lamplight feels insufficient, it’s my cue to turn it off, put on my wellies, and coax my very reluctant dog out for a walk. I’ll match the exhale of wisdom nestled between paragraphs with the invigorating inhale of the night air, watching the breath I release swirl to its end as four small paws press through wet leaves. I can both withstand and enjoy the cold for a little while; soon enough, we’ll return home and curl up with a hot cup of tea. 

Next time, we’ll wander into December’s “Light”, “Midwinter”, and “Epiphany”. We are not meant to be evergreen, but we are meant to learn the dance of light and shadow from our coniferous cousins.

Until then, take good care as you pause, ponder, and wander.

See you on the next page,

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Note: Rambling Reads is a reflective reading series and is not a substitute for therapy or medical support. This is a space where my love of stories meets my work in understanding them.

Cultivating Community: Whenever possible, I encourage borrowing books from your local library or a friend. If you’d like to keep a copy on your shelf while supporting independent bookstores, you can use my affiliate links to Bookshop.org to help keep this ramble going.