Winter Mornings

Slowing down, first frosts and poetry in the wild. November newsletter

Oak tree and winter sky. All photos by me

We’ve lived in the cottage for a few winters now. There’s a quiet rhythm to the start of the season here, getting the firewood in, having the first open fire in the grate, putting a blanket along the bottom of the front door to stop the howling draught that blows in over the fields and comes right up through the floorboards. About a hundred years ago, when these cottages were originally built to house the farm workers — one for the pig man, one for the cow man, and so on — they obviously didn’t consider the direction of the wind. During storms, the house creaks and whistles.

I sometimes wonder what life was like for the people who lived here back then. It’s easy to romanticise their existence as simple and meditative, but I imagine it would have been quite hard, the winters long and dull, though not without their quiet beauty. The farm would have been made up of much smaller fields in the 1920s, edged with hedgerows and abundant with wildlife. There would have been a few cars on the roads, but not many, and horses would still likely have been used to till the fields and move crops. When I think about how much has changed in the last hundred years, not just here in my nook of the universe but everywhere, it is little wonder that most of us are feeling overwhelmed. And yet the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estés ring true: “We were made for these times.” I mean, why else would we be here?

Writing-wise, I feel called to go inwards and do some quiet work over the winter. Sometimes the only way through is deeper in. I’ll still be around, but not publishing as much, on Substack, reading other people’s work, frolicking in the Notes app (which has been fun for me because I’m not great with Meta platforms and missed the whole of Twitter), and there will be one more monthly newsletter from me in December. But before I disappear bear-like into a cave of hibernation, a huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has read, subscribed, followed, shared or supported my work here in 2025. It truly means the world, and I hope you’ll stick around for next year.

November

November moonrise up on the Downs

November has been wet and frighteningly mild. The garden is still visibly growing and there’s been plenty of fresh forage for our pet bunnies: dandelion, lemon balm, plantain and clover. Unnervingly, there are primroses sprouting next to the village school and the ox-eye daisies are still flowering at the turning on to the main road. It’s only now that December is near that the mornings are starting to feel anywhere near crisp. We’ve finally had a couple of decent frosts and the oaks are, later than most, dropping their leaves, brown and russet paper notes swirling downwards in the wind, pure poetry in motion. With the sun rising later, I like to get up before anyone else, make tea and go down to the back field. Boots crunching through long, icy grass. The spidery branches of trees form frozen shapes against the soft wash of coastal colours in the sky, and the world is momentarily suspended in the exquisite, crystalline beauty of the frost. These mornings lift my soul. I begin to feel like myself again.

Nature needs the cold. Our wildflowers require repeated cold/thaw cycles to germinate, apple trees need a minimum chilling time to produce fruit and a good, sharp frosty spell will kill off all kinds of pests and parasites that pose a threat to native wildlife. Overly warm winter weather can lead to hibernating mammals like bats, badgers and hedgehogs waking up too early, before there is sufficient food and when they might not have enough fat reserves to go back to sleep if the temperature drops again. Hibernating butterflies sometimes face the same problem, emerging during warm spells but before enough flowers are blooming to provide them with nectar. After another year of record-breaking weather and climate weirding, I am hopeful for a deep, cold winter reset. Our souls need to winter, too. My eight year old is desperate for it to snow.

It will be a quiet Christmas this year, spent at home. I’m looking forward to stopping everything and hunkering down for the whole festive period. January and the return to reality always comes too soon, at odds with the season’s true pull to rest —  but until then the firewood will stay piled up, the fridge full of food and the boiler full of hot water, wild abundance such as our near ancestors (and my pre-motherhood self, who lived in a delapidated old caravan for several years) could only dream of. Despite all the bad news, the unpredicable weather and the baffling weirdness of the world in the mid 2020s, I am trying to find a gentler way through. To stay receptive to the wonder and the beauty, to have a little faith that brighter days are coming, and to keep rooted in gratitude and in my creative practice. It’s a lifeboat in stormy seas.

“Become strong enough to be tender.” — Maria Popova

Poetry in the wild

Frosty sunrise

A few nice things happened recently.

The director of an Australian theatre company wrote to ask me if they could use one of my poems in their production, Being Alive: The Music of Stephen Sondheim. Of course I said yes! (I have always secretly dreamed of a life on the stage, but never really went for it, so this is kind of a dream come true, albeit in a roundabout sort of way.) The poem they asked permission to use is called Seed Moon. I wrote it while I was entertaining two very tiny children in the back garden during that strange, blue sky spring of 2020, when the whole world was on pause. It’s in my first poetry book:

Seed Moon, a poem from The Honey in the Bones

Anyway, an excerpt from the poem made it into the production and on to the stage! What an honour.

Not long after that, the manager of an urban pollinator garden called the SoBro Conservancy in New York wrote to me, asking to use the same poem to promote a winter seed sowing event for plants native to their region. It’s a great privilege to be asked, and always nice to be credited (always, always credit artists and writers, even on the internet, no exceptions - but you lot knew that already).

Another lovely thing happened. The curator of a botanic garden Dilston Physic Garden emailed me, asking if they could display one of my poems in their wildflower garden, all the way up in the North East of England. Here’s a picture they sent me of the poem among the poppies and cornflowers:

Rewild Yourself in the wildflower garden at Dilston. I hope to visit some day!

This week I recieved an email from Venessa Tai Yeh informing me that my poem, written in support of the people of Palestine, will be featured in Opol’s first quarterly literary journal. I am so chuffed about being included. Do check out the beautiful space that Venessa is creating.

And! Alex Dawson’s beautifully curated poetry anthology Upon Learning That made it to the top of the Amazon bestsellers list after its recent release. Many congratulations to Alex, and thank you again for having me on board. Here’s a pic of my poem, nestled alongside some truly enchanting work by the other writers in the collection:

Upon Learning That Stardust Collects in Gutters, by me, in the Upon Learning That poetry anthology edited and curated by Alex Dawson

All this to say keep writing, Comrades. You never know where your words might land. When I get bogged down in worry and stress (which is, like, often), these things inspire me to keep going with my creative projects, and to take heart that this work matters. I like to think of our poems and works of art as living things that can be part of a global ecosystem, strengthening the web of life on which we all depend. And that’s a good reason to write, I think.

Here’s to a peaceful and sparkling December filled with hope, joy and deep winter dreams. Thank you for spending a few minutes of your precious time here with me today; I really appreciate it. Let me know what your hibernation season is looking like, stay cosy and keep making your art. It matters.

Love Caroline x

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The Honey in the Bones is available here. Or hit me up for signed copies this Christmas 🎄