known as the Saami, traditionally worshiped the sun goddess Beiwe. She is a goddess of light, fertility, and sanity, thus celebrated at the winter solstice to honor the season’s shift from deep darkness into increased light. Traditionally, Beiwe is celebrated at both the winter and the summer solstice in unique ways. During the winter celebrations, Beiwe is entreated to renew life and oversee the growth of plants by increasing fertility in the soil through the process of returning dead plants to the earth. She is also known for her ability to ease mental anguish and depression in the long winter months. As a goddess of light, Beiwe promises future life and renewal for plants, humans, and animals. The rituals and beliefs of northern people groups are incredibly important for promoting peace and well-being during the year’s darkest time periods. These practices are especially important in places where the winter season lasts for several months and temperatures regularly drop below zero—places where movement, life, and warmth are deeply bound up with survival methods. I grew up in Southeast Alaska, and I am intimately familiar with the toll that winter’s prevailing frigidity and blank skies enacts on the psyche and body. On some days it seemed impossible to believe that the world was once warm and light. Time stretched out across tapestries of leafless trees and snow-covered mountain ranges. In December, it was difficult to tell where the pale, cloudy sky ended, and the white peaks of the mountains began. As I watched the winter deepen, my life would settle into a blurred, greyish haze of monotony. The days felt heavy with the immense darkness and relentless cold that covered the world. During these days, it was crucial for the members of our community to find connections that sustain life while we waded through the thickness of winter. In that thickness, Beiwe continues to encourage us to seek the light within other forms of life, such as plants and animals, that also need a tenacious tenderness to protect against the harsh breath of winter.
practices can draw us into closer relationships with the earth and all its inhabitants. Our social structures feel tense and stretched to the breaking point across political and cultural discord. What would it look like to pull ourselves outside the barriers of our social constructs? We have so many practices to keep our bodies moving through our social climate, but in slowing down we can see places for deeper growth and connection. Just for a moment, pause in your reading. Search in your memories for a place that beckoned to you in your past, a place of comfort and peace. This could be a garden, or a mountain, a pond, or even a single flower. Let the flower be a refuge for you. For now, you may need to take refuge alone, letting your body rest in solitude. Eventually, you can slowly begin to invite others into your place of refuge, practicing vulnerability with those you trust. In practicing deep introspection, Beiwe invites us to think about our relationships with plants, animals, others, and how these networks interact and breathe together. Where has harm been done? Where can healing begin? As we find ourselves in the heart of winter’s coldest months, allow yourself time to slow down. Consider how the vulnerabilities of your body to the cold, harsh winter weather connect you to the cycles of earth. What would it mean to embrace moments of pain, joy, beauty, and even death as interconnected forces? In her essay, “An Ecology of the Body,” Celeste Snowber writes: “To begin letting this glorious sensuous earth into [our] bodies is a place to shift the tides. We are living from skin to sky. It is all one. What if we could look at the marks and scars on our aging bodies or young bodies and see the wonder of the canyonlands? Treasuring the fragility and strength as complementary pairs of being human” (78). What does it mean to be living from skin to sky in the depth of winter? At this moment of solstice, look over your body’s memories and embrace the wonder of your changing universe. The Quiet Life of Winter
The connections between humans, animals, and plants underpin many of the beliefs shared among northern indigenous people. Beiwe unites nature, drawing all life into an ecology where we nurture and respond to the sacred beings of plants and animals as they do the same for our human bodies. Animals and plants are believed to share sacred spiritual connections to humans, and at the time of the winter solstice, Beiwe encourages us to tend to these connections as a method for alleviating the stress placed on all life forms during the winter. Today, we see ourselves as increasingly separate from plants and animals, and many of our practices have alienated us from the symbiotic relationship shared across nature. At this moment of solstice, it is important to reflect on and create spaces in our homes and communities to nurture our connections to the earth and to all its life.
As I prepared to write this, I remembered a drive frequently made to the Spokane, Washington airport. The road from my home to the airport was about 80 miles, and it stretched through breathtaking landscapes of snow-covered wheat fields and forests full of pine trees. One year, I drove the whole way in a blizzard to make it home to Alaska for Christmas. My body felt like it was in an intense fight with external elements that would have been welcome if I were indoors, safely sipping hot tea. There’s something about that drive that made me feel at odds with my own skin. I love the snow, but that day my body raged against the beautiful, crystalized flakes as they slowed me down. Entering the deepest part of winter this year, I feel drawn to reflections on how my body, and all bodies, are connected to earth’s cycles and elemental changes. What does the darkness have to teach us about ourselves and about our connections to the earth?
As we reflect on the changes in light that are on our horizon, let us consider how our bodies and our daily
The underlying anxieties around our relationship to nature stand out in moments when we feel at odds with the world Cultivate SA | 33
