Winter: Seeds of Renewal 40 Day Wintering Experience

Reflections on Our 40-Day Journey at Just Love Forest

There’s a kind of magic that only winter can teach. Its a slow, sacred magic that doesn’t arrive with fanfare, but with quiet invitations. Over 40 days, a community of 12 of us chose to meet that magic head-on through Seeds of Renewal, our wintering journey rooted in forest therapy, stillness, and presence.

At the heart of the experience was the sit spot a simple commitment to return to the same place each day. For some, it was a patch of woods. For others, a window ledge or backyard corner. What mattered was the returning. The noticing. The listening.

Each day brought a new invitation. “Notice what’s decaying.” “Feel the cold against your skin.” “Walk with no destination.” These were open doors into deeper relationship: with nature, with our bodies, and with the truths winter tends to uncover when we finally slow down enough to hear them.

We met each week in virtual circle, sharing teas, silence, and stories from our sit spot experiences. Some were tender. Some were joyful. Some were full of grief. All were welcome. As one participant shared, “I didn’t know I needed winter so much. I didn’t know it could feel like coming home.”

This journey wasn’t about productivity. It wasn’t about self-improvement. It was about being in the most honest, restful way possible.

And in that being, something beautiful happened:

- We remembered that the earth doesn’t rush her seasons, and neither should we.

- We felt how rest isn’t a luxury, but a biological and spiritual necessity.

- We experienced that community can thrive in quiet spaces, even across distance.

As the first green buds begin to appear in the forest, we carry something with us now. Not a resolution. Not a plan. But a deeper knowing:

Winter is not the absence of life.

It’s the deep breath before becoming.

And we are now becoming in spring.

To all who journeyed with us, thank you. May the seeds you planted in stillness grow wild and true.

Join us next winter for this special container with Bala.