Even the daylight seems watery and thin compared to the way it feels vibrant and saturated in summer. The sky looks gray every day, pressing down heavily over the tall, bare skeletons of trees.

Each morning I stand with my tea looking out over the yard, watching for signs of change. Even when I can’t see them yet, I know they’re coming.

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The land in these Appalachian foothills speaks in subtle signs. Sharing hints and whispers that need interpreting. Things that are easily missed if you’re not tuned in.

But I think that’s nature’s way of bringing us to stillness, allowing us to see what’s in the present. Making it so we can’t worry about anything else for just a moment.

Now, I have to admit that winter isn’t my favorite season. I’ve long regarded it as something to be endured rather than something to be enjoyed.

While I still feel a little bit like this, my relationship with winter has changed to one of respect for the work the season is doing.

Winter’s work is rest. In modern society, rest has become something labeled as weak or lazy (or worse). It certainly isn’t regarded as a path to abundance and yet, in nature, each part of the cycle is equally important.

Nothing in the natural world is designed to go without rest. Everything has a season and a cycle.

It’s been a tough transition for me to allow myself to experience my own fallow field era. Where I’m seemingly producing nothing, even if it’s a deeply necessary cycle.

Feeling exhausted has never done anything good for me but now that I live with two chronic illnesses, I’m ever more convinced that peace and a slower pace are definitely not something that reflects poorly on my character.

Like nature, I need a winter season.

Grief, loss and transition are often linked to the winter season but I think the barren field in January would say otherwise.

That field is storing exactly what it needs for spring. Working underground to prepare on a schedule only it gets to choose.

There will come a day when the rest of the world can see the new growth, but on any day in midwinter, most of the world sees nothing.

And yet, there’s abundance there, but it’s the sort we mostly can’t see yet.

Except for those of us who watch Mother Earth closely. We see things. Like how geese navigate thousands of miles without maps, returning to the same nesting sites over and over again throughout their lifetime.

And how a dead tree will spark new life or a river will find a way through rock, no matter what.

Ancient wisdom is there under our feet and all around us. Modern life tries to make us forget this. But we haven’t.

Sure, we now rely on alarm clocks instead of the rising sun to wake us up every day. And some of us have never experienced the joy of picking a homegrown, sun-ripened tomato.

But deep in our bones, we remember the ancient wisdom of Mother Earth.

As a younger woman, I was expecting myself to be the same version of me every single month, year in and year out. Green witchery and Mother Earth have reminded me that seasons and cycles are exactly how I should be because that is where the abundant wisdom of both is found.

Perhaps the true abundance of winter is being invited to look a little longer so that we notice what’s not obvious. To look for what’s changing and what’s growing and what’s happening below the surface.

These things might be found in the world around you or they might be found within you.

Last month, I started talking about the abundance available to us from the natural world around us every day. If you missed that piece, you can find it here.

Next month, we’ll move into springtime and keep going through each season until we’ve made it around the Wheel of the Year.

For now though, I want to invite you to consider what winter means to you and what you find in it.

Blessed be,
Karen

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Karen believes in making a little magick every day. She’s a green witch, Certified Moonologer™, Reiki Master/Teacher, animist, shamanic practitioner, ordained minister, equestrian, mom to a human daughter and many animals, including cats, horses, and dogs. When she’s not working, you’ll find her enjoying the outdoors, spending time with her family, friends, and horses, gardening, or reading a good book.

During August, I like to sit on the porch most evenings with my tea, watching the light leave a little earlier than it did even ten days ago.

The tomatoes we planted are going strong, the herbs are a little out of control, and there’s a slant to the afternoon light now that wasn’t there in July.

Mother Earth is changing her mind about the season, and I can feel it before I can see it.

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For a long time I thought of abundance as one thing that just dressed up in different outfits. More money. More stuff. More outward signs of doing well.

I built my career around that single idea and then wondered why I felt wrung out, like I’d run a race where nobody told me the finish line had been moved each time I felt I got within sight of it.

My garden got me to look at things differently. I’d spend July hauling water and harvesting, feeling like I was keeping up, and then August would show up, and the same plants that had been producing all summer would start pulling their energy back down into the roots. Less happening on top of the surface, but busy underneath. Still producing, but seemingly doing less.

Gardens have this way of making you notice cycles.

Winter does something like my August garden too. A field in January is storing what it needs for spring, working it out underground, in its own time, long before anything green shows up where we can see it.

I used to think of those months as dead time, something to just get through.

I don’t see it the same way anymore.

Spring has its own kind of wealth, all that green pushing up out of cold ground. This sort of growth is mostly invisible until the day it suddenly appears.

Summer is full with long days and more daylight than you know what to do with.

Fall is for gathering in and letting go, both at once.

Four completely different versions of having enough, depending on where the wheel of the year happens to be.

I was expecting myself to remain the same every single month. The natural world showed me that it has its own cycles and pace and so do I.

I wanted to start talking about this rhythm with the imagery of my porch and my tea because this is really about paying a little closer attention to what’s happening around us. Sitting on the porch with tea allows for that.

Next month, I’ll visit winter since that’s the season many of us enjoy the least.

Then, I’ll continue on with spring, summer, and fall after that. Each one with its own particular kind of abundance.

For now though, I want to invite you to consider the idea that the abundance you’re seeking might already be moving through your yard, the sky overhead, or even in the hours of daylight you have left today.

Blessed be,

Karen

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Karen believes in making a little magick every day. She’s a green witch, Certified Moonologer™, Reiki Master/Teacher, animist, shamanic practitioner, ordained minister, equestrian, mom to a human daughter and many animals, including cats, horses, and dogs. When she’s not working, you’ll find her enjoying the outdoors, spending time with her family, friends, and horses, gardening, or reading a good book.

I’m a green witch, which means nature is the center of my practice. Through Ravynwood, I share personal stories and perspectives from over thirty years of walking this path, imperfectly and honestly. It’s rooted in lived experience, seasonal awareness, and the understanding that magick isn’t something separate from everyday life. Abundance in the natural world felt like the right place to start today, since June makes it almost impossible not to notice it.

The Abundance of the Natural World in June

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, then you’ll know that abundance is just... everywhere.

Farm fields are filling in with this year’s crops. The forest canopies are full and dense. Wildflowers are popping up in places that you weren’t expecting them. Gardens are beginning to produce and daylight stretches long into the evening hours.

For the green witch, this month is a living lesson. Mother Earth in the month of June is a study in holding nothing back. She shows us a kind of fullness that invites us to move into full expression too.

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Abundance Isn’t One Thing

Here’s something that I often need a reminder of: abundance in nature isn’t just about the end result.

It’s also about the dandelion pushing up through a sidewalk crack. It’s found in what happens underground before a fresh green shoot breaks the surface.

It’s in the sunrise, the rainfall, and the bird migrations.

For me, green witchcraft has always been a path of personal transformation. Where the practical and the magickal aren’t two separate things, but are woven together seamlessly into one life.

Noticing Mother Earth’s abundance in June fits into this too. Because it’s not just a seasonal observation. It’s ancient wisdom that translates surprisingly well into our very modern lives.

When you begin to see the natural world this way, it changes your relationship with it a little.

The dandelion doesn’t decide a sidewalk crack is a bad place to grow. It just grows there.

That’s a powerful reframe for how we think about our own lives. What we have, how we keep going, what we’re capable of even when conditions aren’t ideal.

Resilience is abundance. Showing up is abundance.

The natural world knows this.

Solstice Wisdom

Late June brings the Summer Solstice when daylight is longest and the sun is at its peak power.

Solstice offers its own kind of teaching on abundance. The sun shines at full capacity, and the earth grows because of it.

This wisdom is worth contemplating in your own life.

Where in your life might full expression be exactly what’s needed?

An Invitation for This Season

Nature this time of year is extraordinarily generous with its wisdom, if you’re open to receiving it.

A walk outside, a few quiet minutes in the garden, or making friends with a wildflower that volunteered in your vegetable patch are all ways of tuning into what the earth is sharing right now.

As green witches, we learn to hear Mother Earth’s ancient language and let it inform how we move through our own lives.

So here’s to June, one of the most generous teachers of the year.

What is the natural world showing you about abundance right now?

Bright blessings,

Karen

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ravynwood.com

Ravynwood Green Witch Life on Substack

Karen believes in making a little magick every day. She’s a green witch, Certified Moonologer™, Reiki Master/Teacher, animist, shamanic practitioner, ordained minister, equestrian, mom to a human daughter and many animals, including cats, horses, and dogs. When she’s not working, you’ll find her enjoying the outdoors, spending time with her family, friends, and horses, gardening, or reading a good book.

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