When Winter Comes Back

For weeks here in Calgary, it has felt like spring arrived early.

The snow melted. The air softened. Pathways cleared. There was that subtle lift in the body that comes when light lingers just a little longer at the end of the day. It felt like movement. Like forward motion. Like we were done with winter.

And then, almost without warning, the cold returned. Snow again. Ice underfoot. A second winter settling back in.

It would be easy to call it regression. To feel frustrated by the reversal. To assume that what had shifted was premature, or mistaken. But seasons don’t move in straight lines. They circle. They test. They stir before they settle into something new.

February feels a bit like this.

There’s movement beneath the surface. A warming, a softening, a quiet readiness, but not yet resolution. Not yet a sprout or bloom. And when clarity doesn’t arrive on schedule, it can be tempting to think something has gone wrong.

When the snow came back this week, I felt like I was moving backwards.

My body longed to retreat and contract. My mind felt blocked and hesitant, unsure how to move forward. It’s strange how quickly momentum can feel revoked. As if the early softness was a mistake. As if the warmth had been premature.

And yet, nothing had actually gone wrong.

The ground is still warming beneath the surface. The light is still lengthening. The return of cold doesn’t undo what has already begun. It simply interrupts the illusion of steady forward motion.

I wonder if we do this internally, too.

When something begins to shift but hasn’t yet revealed its shape, we call it uncertainty. We assume we’ve lost clarity. We brace for the worst outcome, because open space feels less secure than a defined path.

Our minds want resolution. But beneath that, what we really want is reassurance. Some quiet promise that wherever this is heading, we will be okay.

And when that promise isn’t immediately available, we interpret the stirring as regression.

What would shift if we stopped demanding resolution from every season of change?

If we allowed stirring to be what it is. Not proof that something is wrong, but evidence that something is moving beneath the surface.

Perhaps the return of cold wouldn’t feel like something to resist.

Perhaps the absence of clarity wouldn’t feel like something to fix.

Perhaps we could recognize that becoming rarely announces itself with certainty. It gathers quietly. It tests the edges. It moves in pulses.

Second winters do not undo the warming.
 

They remind us that growth is not linear.

February doesn’t resolve. It stirs.

And maybe the invitation isn’t to solve what’s shifting, but to stay with it long enough for its shape to reveal itself.

If you feel called, sit with these questions:

Where in my life am I interpreting stirring as regression?

Where in my life am I feeling a quiet stirring without clarity yet?

XO

Ashley

P.S. February’s Print Club offering, The Edge of Becoming, is available now. A signed print and accompanying love letter created to keep you company while what’s next quietly takes shape. You can learn more and join us here.