“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot”. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
The Danish tradition of Hygge, which dates back to 1800, embraces the ritual of going inside and being cosy. This tradition has become so entrenched in Danish culture that the Danes look forward to the winter months. Anecdotes from locals suggest that, from September, plans are underfoot to invite friends into your home to share the darker months. Over the last decade, this idea of Hygge has reached us in the UK as the nights start to draw in. As the season changes, we get to enjoy the miracle of the trees wearing coats of richly coloured leaves. The deep reds, oranges and browns complement the change to the lower softer light of Autumn, working in an almost orchestral way with the leaves falling. It’s like a walk through the woods as the leaves begin to shed. It seems like nature is having a celebration of its own like confetti being thrown on a wedding day.
The beauty of nature’s changes in the season are sometimes lost on us, as we are subsumed by fears about a dark winter. Over a coffee with a friend the other day, a waitress suggested a comforting mint hot chocolate as the day was so grey. She explained that she had only recently arrived in London from New Zealand and was nervous about the winter, as she had heard how gloomy the weather would be. We had a small chat with her and explained that maybe this fear could be dispelled by seeing it, as nature does, as a period of hibernation. Spiritual practice teaches us that Autumn is a time for introspection and reflection, an invitation to sow the seeds within us for the Spring rebirth. In Gaelic tradition, there is Samhain, a festival that marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, which is marked by fire. It is a time of year for lighting fires and candles to remember those who have passed.
The quandary that the changing seasons place on our mood, in spite of these beautiful rituals, is a struggle with the early darkness, but this can perhaps be enlivened by a simple change of perspective. Wylde Market celebrates local and seasonal produce through Selon le Marché. This philosophy celebrates the season, the geography and what it produces. Autumn is, in many ways, the season in which the senses are most highly explored as we reach for cosiness. The simple way of finding this is eating or drinking to create an inner warmth. The smells from an autumn kitchen on a dark evening can provide the comfort of a huge hug, but when paired with the interior scene we set, the lighting of a fire, the burning of a candle or incense, we create a feast for our feelings and let go of the responsibility of each day.
When it comes to embracing this cosiness, some of us can be hindered from fully delving into it. We talk about our phones being a barrier to restfulness, the feeling of always being switched on, a kind of avatar feeding into the broader levels of anxiety we all feel in a world that seems ever uncertain, not least of all in its political outlook. This instability often means that we can feel a slight guilt that arises from not always being available. Some artists have taken this to the point where they have rejected the full use of mobile phones. It is rumoured that the artist Prince actively rid his life of clocks, as he saw them as a block to his creativity. The clock seems a simpler dictator than the phone, but the measure of somehow being constantly on watch makes the need to switch off paramount to our own sense of shared humanity.
In his book ‘Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools,’ Tyler Stanton argues that the clock, the light bulb and the iPhone have moved us away from living within the natural rhythms of nature, such as day and night. As we measure the efficiency of our time through the use of clocks, extend working hours by light and have the constant distraction and entertainment of the phone at our fingertips, the time that we have to get bored, and the space to have an awareness for God and a wider outlook to others is limited. The active intention of setting space and silence is what really allows us to hear.
During Covid, as the world stood still, this sense of a shared humanity became apparent through the weekly applause to the NHS, the sharing of food and looking out for our neighbours. Even birdsong seemed to hold more clarity during that time. As we move to a post-Covid world, this search for cosiness continues. Mintel research suggests this is apparent through cooking from scratch as a way of responding to the continued uncertainty. Though it seems to take a crisis for us to look further afield than our own lives, nature works defiantly towards flourishing through connection. The increased biodiversity when nature is allowed to make these connections can be seen in traditional indigenous farming methods such as agroforestry and agrofarming.
So as we embrace Autumn and the winter months ahead, we could take a literal leaf from mother nature and its interconnectivity to flora, fungi and fauna. This is particularly well captured by The Tree of Life mythology. This tree across cultures, represents the source of life and the connection of all lives. The roots of the branches symbolise interdependence in all its forms. So perhaps in those moments we can take the Tree of Life analogy and embrace the season of Autumn by not only going inwards but also looking outwards and seeing where it might also help our neighbour.