E236 – What Winter Knows // Tending to Endings with The Wilder Kin

“We kind of live for the summer and we wish the winter away but I am realising now how important it is to slow down in winter, in community, process in order to then move on to the next cycle.”

E236 – What winter knows // Tending to Endings with The Wilder Kin

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About this episode: What does it mean to winter – deeply, wisely, and together?

We often think of winter as a season of endings. A time when the leaves have dropped, the ground hardens, and things seem to fall quiet. But what if winter isn’t just about what dies off but about what is beginning, beneath the surface? What if the whole year is just a preparation for winter? In this episode, we explore the idea of wintering in community – how we might not only survive the cold seasons of our lives, but move through them together.

The Wilder Kin are a collective of five women holding space for seasonal, regenerative ways of being together in nature. Together they created Wintering – a deep invitation to slow down, reflect, and reweave community through the wisdom of the dark months. There’s something powerful that happens when we slow down, not in isolation, but in connection. When we make room for rest, reflection, and the kind of honest tending that can only happen in darker times.

We talk about:

:: How important it is to support ourselves and each other – not just when things are easy, but when everything feels uncertain or chaotic

:: Personal winter stories and reflections about the warmth that can still be found in winter through shared meals, songs by candlelight, the quiet noticing of tiny shifts

:: What becomes possible when we winter together

:: How we can build our capacity to be with the endings – personal, collective, systemic

:: What it means to compost the old, to let things fall, and to trust in what’s becoming

Systems and soil, bonfires and wormeries, hospicing and fallowing, it might sound earthy and strange, but it’s deeply human. It’s the work of transformation. Not the flashy kind but the slow, underground kind that makes the new truly possible. This is an invitation to be with the seasons and to remember that even in winter, you are not alone.

“It’s in that emptiness or nakedness or void that the new possibilities can begin to imagine themselves under the ground of our lives or deep inside the quieter parts of ourselves.” Sally Wildling

The Wilder Kin are a collective of five friends and facilitators rooted in regenerative practice, nature connection, and soulful community. They met during a six-month nature-based residency at Wild Things Farm, 25-acres of rewilded land in Pensford near Bristol, where they formed deep bonds through ceremony, nature connection, and shared longing for slower, cyclical ways of living. From that seed grew Wintering – a three-month journey for a small group to gather around the hearth on rewilded land and explore what it means to winter in these times. Held between Samhain and Imbolc, this offering weaves ritual, reflection, and reciprocity with the more-than-human world. Through silence and story, composting and dreaming, The Wilder Kin invite others into a remembering of how to be well in the darker seasons – together.

Jessica Ferrow is a sustainable business mentor, nature-based facilitator, and mother, walking the path of cyclical living and soulful enterprise including Kindred Village.

Sally Wilding, steward and guardian of Wild Things Farm, nurturing a community of humans to come home to the land and each other.

Juliet Daye is a Co-Founder of Satori Organisational Development working at the intersection of inner and outer change and also Re-Gathering.

Heather Knight is the founder of Arteri, a design studio that connects us to stories of hope and inspires collective action.

Ella Saltmarshe creates culture that supports all life to have a safe future. She is the director of The Culture Initiative, which houses projects like The Long Time Project & Inter-Narratives, and she hosts The Long Time Academy Podcast.

Wild Things Farm is a biodiversity and community connections project, working in partnership with wild beings across the land to regenerate natural systems & human souls. Offerings include intergenerational village, seasonal ceremonies and feasts to mark the wheel of the year, singing in nature, conservation volunteering and various ongoing groups exploring the most pressing needs of our times.

To connect or work with The Wilder Kin, visit solo.to/wildthingsfarm

To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk