preparing for a covid winter in a covid fall
26 Oct 2020i started this post on the equinox and it’s taken me over a month to finish it. #iblamethepandemic
this year, as i celebrated the equinox by paying close attention to nature, digging into my natal chart, and pulling some tarot cards, i had a realization: fall is a season of transition. maybe i would dislike winter less (phrasing intentional) if i actually worked with or use the fall to transition into winter. i was reading somewhere that spring and fall are the transition seasons for summer and winter. of course, everything is transition always, but spring and fall are mostly transitional.
anyway, since sept 22, i have been looking to the nature of fall to prepare for the winter.
and in 2020, this will be a covid winter so it feels EXTRA important to prepare for winter well. in fact, it’s sort of shocking to me how little discussion i had been hearing about preparing for a covid winter. in the intervening four weeks, i’ve heard more about it, but still relatively little by way of actual plans. the most i’ve heard is that outdoor space heaters seem to be sold out in lots of places.
and i get it. outside is what has made the pandemic manageable for many people, myself included.
but if our primary collective response to winter is to try and modify the outdoors during winter to be manageable… i just feel like that’s a set up for failure. it’s also probably going to increase our collective energy usage in an unhelpful.
anyway, i have been thinking about doing my own prep for winter and the fall has brought much inspiration:
- animals flying south
- animals harvesting and storing (honey) or burying (nuts) foods that will be food supply thru winter
- animals eating extra right now to fatten themselves up for hibernation or times of low food supply
- plants dropping leaves and dying above ground so they can focus energy on roots staying very alive underground
so here are some concrete things i’m doing:
- starting to shift my weekly cooking plan away from fresh veggies and more towards root veggies and soups
- increasing my reading time each month (i am reading 15m/day from sept 22-oct 21, 30m/day from oct 22-nov 21, 45m/day from nov 22-dec 21, all so i can be up to 1h/day for the three winter months)
- trying to land a cuddle buddy/pod for winter (thank Spirit for mike casey over 2019/2020 winter, wow! what a life saver)
- slowly shifting my waking and sleeping schedule to follow the sun
- increasing the amount of immune system boosting things i’m taking in
- getting some indoor strength training equipment (helloooo resistance bands and new yoga gear)
so that’s what i got for now. are you using prepare for winter? if yes, feel free to share how!
words / writing / post-processing
470w / 11min / 4min