Finding my way in ‘winterspring’.
with one foot in each world, trusting in slow transitions.
I’m Lyndsay, mother, creative and storyteller with a background in interiors PR. Story & Thread. is a weekly letter exploring the intersection of creativity, mothering and the living world, with a home and a garden at the heart...
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“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”
―Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.
Hello everyone
How is your week going so far?
There is an ever-so slightly different light in London as I write this morning after what has felt like days (weeks?) covered in a blanket of grey, and so these subtle shimmers of early spring sunlight feel extra precious.
Other shimmers this week have been a slow savouring of words woven in the daisy chain flower crown for International Women’s Day. I was touched by so many and loved writing about the time that I needed the wisdom of the daisy to lead me back into the fullness of both softness and strength.
One of the strongest messages from the writing of women is a need to return to the ancient ways of gathering together, to support and create together.
We are remembering and reclaiming this medicine at the Holding Stories spring gathering at a beautiful location in East London on the morning of Saturday 20th April — it will be an opportunity to tend to yourself and connect to your inner storyteller through seasonal rituals and contemplations with myself and — we would love you to join us. More details about our collaboration and the gathering here, earlybird tickets end tomorrow.
This week I am exploring the in-between time we find ourselves in as we edge our way towards the spring equinox next week, but without having fully emerged from winter — and the cues we can take from the back and forth of ‘winterspring’.
March as a container of change.
In March, we are firmly in meterological spring1, but it doesn’t feel like an easeful path. Although it hasn’t always felt like home, I know where I stand in winter, and from that place of knowing, I can soften to what the season entails and requires of me. I am drawn inside, the pull comes from deep in my bones, a feeling that grows as we reach the shortest day at the winter solstice. There is a sureness, a certainty, a kind of insistence.
The beginning of spring however can leave me feeling bewildered. The pearlescent promises of snowdrops have all but faded and yet we are waiting for spring to begin. March is a time of transition, contained within a bigger shift in the season, making it feel wayward at times. The light and promise of March is filled with hope and expectation, but I find it to be “savage and serene”2 in equal measure. There are whispers of warmth as I sit on the step by our back door with a cup of coffee, but there is also dousing cold rain as we walk to nursery through mists and plentiful puddles.
March is a melding of the seasons, a container of change. It is not one or the other, or perhaps it is both, with spring keen to move forwards but winter still holding on tight — it is ‘winterspring’. Naming this time in an unpredictable shape-shifting corner of the calendar3 soothes me somewhat, embracing the push/pull and knowing that we are not supposed to be in spring yet, but it is coming.
The spiral of unfurling in winterspring.
March is known for its swirling winds as per the proverb, "March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers”, alluding to the fact that the flowers will come and there is hope.
There is a liminality within the wind itself, it is not stable or predictable, it can feel unsettling and blow us off course, just like the hopeful daffodils that stoop in the squall. There are calmer days too with brighter sunshine and a sense that things are beginning to awaken from their long winter nap. But no sooner are we opening windows to let the fresh air in, the grey sky is laden with icy raindrops and the sideways sleet makes its way back into our bones.
The creep towards May flowers feels less like linear forward-motion and more like a gradual spiral-like unfurling, with a number of hasty retreats along the way. We move back and forth with our feet between two worlds, but we are only heading in one direction.
I am almost certain that I speak for others too, when I say that I am turning towards and reaching out for any sunlight that I can glimpse — feeling the need for light to be absorbed into skin, to feel a warmth as if from within. We are silently yet keenly gathering ourselves before we emerge.
A somersault of momentum.
It feels to me as though this time of the year requires the most powerful energy shift of all4. For the earth to shift from a period of quietude, dormancy and rest (though we know that growth has been occurring, often unseen under the surface), to a phase of outward, visible growth. There is a move from a downward, rooting energy and stillness, to one of rising up and of movement.
An almost impossible transformation from bleakness, shadows and stark silhouettes to a palette of soft pastel shades and verdant, fresh greens takes place. There is a beauty in the subtlety of the light as we move further into spring — changing from lemon sorbet shards to a glistening molten gold. It is as though the tipping of the light that occurs at the spring equinox (or Ostara) is needed for the somersault of momentum to gather.
Through my window.
According to ‘Nature’s Calendar: The British Year in 72 Seasons’, we are immersed in the days of the chiff chaffs’ return, soon to be followed by the butterflies. As well as being cheering prospects, it feels as though both creatures of the air hold hopeful symbolism within their wings as bright omens of the days ahead.
In the garden, I have noticed the optimism of brave bulbs coming into flower, though their rain-soaked petals often bow towards the earth. The soft-hued palette feels gently uplifting against the cool, sludgy winter backdrop, and I find it in some ways preferable to the stronger colours of summer.
Daffodils are in abundance, so beautiful when they appear wild in drifts and in swathes at the roadside. Hellebores are still bringing their dusky beauty and buds are reaching fullness — branches bursting with blossom as we walk near home. I have found myself drawn outside on the drier days, cutting back dead wood and overgrown tendrils, and with a strong urge to turn the earth, to move some stillness and stagnancy.
A seasonal shift within.
For us too, the shift from an inward state of rest, reflection and dreaming into nurturing growth and finding pockets of expansiveness can feel unwieldy and uncomfortable. I am finding myself being drawn to planning a moveable framework whilst still incubating ideas and feeling my way, rather than rushing to make any sweeping changes.
Perhaps there will be a measure of back and forth for us too, an ebb before the flow. Just like the world around us, we can take our time and wait for the perfect conditions to unfold. We can continue to cut back old growth, to shift stagnancy and sow new seeds but it is all an act of preparation, nourishing, and waiting. We are not ready to bloom yet.
I feel the winterspring in my mothering too. I have spoken about how I have existed in a hibernal state since my before pregnancies — trusting that unseen magic is taking place despite being deeply concealed within.
“The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.”
—Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
But inch by inch, as both children grow and turn their faces outwards to the strengthening sunlight, I begin to taste a delicate emergence as I find my way within my creativity and my mothering — sometimes with incrementally more time and space than only the margins and the edges as before.
Winterspring signifies a slow, gentle wake up — the sort I once basked in and for now can only dream of. Leisurely and delicious, we can bide our time before we draw the curtains fully open, allowing our eyes to adjust and find the joy in the potential as we prepare, wait and nourish ourselves.
It is time to ease the expectations on our unfurling, it will happen at exactly the right time. As I peer out of my cocoon knowing that I may need to withdraw again, I look out tentatively, just as the light touches me.
Thank you so much for reading my experience of winterspring…
I would love to hear if you relate to the back and forth of this time of the year and how it feels for you…
Of course I love to chat in the comments and welcome you to join me there but also feel free to email me your thoughts if you are not on Substack, I always love to hear from you.
Lyndsay x
P.S. If you are still feeling in winter mode, you might like to read A Love Letter to Winter, which in some hours of the day still feels relevant!
By the meteorological calendar, spring will always start on 1 March; ending on 31 May.
“Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.”―Ralph Waldo Emerson.
It would be remiss of me not to note that our seasons are undeniably in flux due to climate change and whilst I am writing about the normal transition between winter and spring in this post, I am aware that unfortunately we are set to experience more seasonal confusion as temperatures rise. I recommend
’s post on living seasonally in a climate crisis for further reading.Whereas spring to summer requires a strengthening and building on what has already been put in place, summer to autumn is a fading and letting go, autumn to winter is a slowing into stillness and rest.
lovely stuff Lyndsay, you've nailed why March feels so hard to me - I can't wait for April and even more for May! it all seems a bit clearer and easier to grasp then. the in-between is tricky! xx
I wish I'd come across this post sooner as you've captured so much of what I've been thinking and feeling but struggling to articulate. This transition has always been one of the easier ones for me, but in recent years that's changed. I think because my health isn't what it once was, and it seems as though it's going to take more time than I'd anticipated to recover from this last pregnancy and some of the demands it's placed on me, physically and emotionally. Winterspring feels like my inner season as well as the outer season!