The Way Through Winter is a nurturing process for exploring the dark and difficult times in our lives.
Written and voiced by Katherine May, author of Wintering and Enchantment, this 6-week programme will guide you through reflective and creative ways to understand your experiences and mindset as you traverse life’s frozen landscapes.
All the course materials are exclusive to the course, and build on Katherine’s book, Wintering.
They include:
Exclusive audio recordings by Katherine, expanding on the central ideas of the book and suggesting new avenues of enquiry.
Specially recorded readings of Wintering.
Guided meditations to help you to rest and reflect.
Journaling prompts and creative exercises to take your exploration deeper.
Allow The Way Through Winter to guide you along your own pathway through difficult times
“Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”
Overview: Week by week
Week 0:
Introduction
An introduction to this course
What is wintering?
Understanding the connection between the cold season and the dark moments in our lives.
How to think about time as a cycle.
Week 1:
Winter Quietly Rolls In
Understanding your time of wintering
You Are Here: what it feels like to land in a personal winter.
Exploring the belief systems that tell us that wintering is a personal failure.
Adapting to slow time.
Week 2:
Getting Cold
On feeling ‘out in the cold’ and ‘frozen’
Making friends with the cold and understanding its effect on our bodies.
What cold weather tells us about the hard parts of life.
Self-care during our personal winters.
Week 3:
Slumber
Exploring sleep, dreams and liminality
Understanding liminality and its importance in our lives.
Inhabiting the hidden spaces that open up during winter.
The importance of dreams in dark times.
Week 4:
Metamorphosis
On irresistible change
Understanding winter as a process of transition.
The changes of winter: shedding, paring back, renewing.
Discerning between agency and control.
Week 5:
Light and Darkness
Walking with painful feelings
The wolves of winter: grief, craving, bitterness and anger.
Understanding our midwinter moment.
The uses of light in dark times.
Week 6:
Thawing
Meeting the world after a long winter
Why you cannot rush your winter.
How to sense and approach your thaw.
Engaging with purpose and wisdom as you emerge.
“When it’s really cold, the snow makes a lovely noise underfoot, and it’s like the air is full of stars.”
The Way Through Winter is a digital course, delivered completely online
Once a week for six weeks, you will receive an email containing new materials for study.
Course features:
Self-paced: work through your weekly course materials in one go, or spread them out over several days. Take as much time as you like, pausing if you need to.
Immersive: The Way Through Winter encourages you to explore the ideas in Wintering actively, and in your own way.
Gentle: the readings, exercises and meditations are soothing and supportive, designed to help you to find calm amid the storm.
Accessible: listen to the audio and make use of our transcripts.
Return to the materials as often as you wish.
How to join
We offer the first introductory part of the course for free. This will allow you to immerse yourself in the learning style without sharing any personal information, and allow you to make an informed decision about whether you’d like to proceed. We wanted to make it easy to walk away if it’s not for you, no hard (or awkward!) feelings.
If you wish to continue with the six-week programme after that, you can sign up and we’ll email the first week’s content immediately.
“Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle.”
Praise from course participants
““It’s been a real tonic and treat to actively explore my Winter and acknowledge that it’s ok to feel frozen. How restorative and hugely nourishing that process is turning out to be. Thank you so much.””
“Just completed [your course] and I wanted to thank you. It was so helpful and I know I will return to it.”
“Loving the course so far...inspiring to listen to. Delicious.”
“Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but
its crucible.”
Some important notes
The Way Through Winter is a creative programme, and is not intended to replace medical advice or therapeutic support. Please seek any help you need first and foremost.
This is a self-guided course, aimed at seeding your own exploration. There is no assessment of work, and no personal contact with Katherine is offered or available. We are not able to offer individual support by email or through any other means.
Please take your time to explore the course introduction: it is a key component of the learning, and a good indicator of the nature and approach of the rest of the programme. Once you have registered for the paid component, we are unable to offer refunds.
Further questions?
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Yes, the course material is made available to you to complete at a time that suits you.
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The content in this course is delivered primarily via audio and pdf workbook. Auto-generated transcripts of the audio elements are also available.
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Yes, it is preferable that you read the book before embarking on the course. The materials are designed to build on and personalise your existing understanding of Wintering.
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No, but it’s available in all good bookshops. We highly recommend supporting your local bookstore, such as our friends at Harbour Books in the UK
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This is totally up to you, but we recommend an hour or two (or more!) each week, to get the benefit from the course content.
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Katherine unfortunately doesn’t offer 1:1 mentoring. We’d recommend joining her Substack where you can join a community of like-minded people for monthly book clubs and events, journaling prompts and Katherine’s writing.
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Absolutely. Please click this link and fill out the form. You’ll receive a digital certificate to give as a gift, and we will separately invite the lucky recipient to join the course. They will receive an invitation email. Sometimes this may take 2-3 business days. For gifts purchased in November and December 2024, recipients will be invited to join the course around 6th January 2025.
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You will have access to this course for as long as it is hosted on my course platform, which I hope will be many years. If you purchase the course, you will be able to download materials to keep for your own use beyond this time