We all move through cycles in our lives. In times of change or transition, we can feel unsteady or uncertain. In times of stillness or settling, we can feel restless or questioning. Many spiritual seekers and teachers have used the metaphor of seasons (periods of time/space, characterized by different qualities and callings), often to better understand some of the complexity and contradiction we hold through the mirror of the natural world.

​As Parker Palmer writes, “The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all — and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.” (Let Your Life Speak)

​What do we do when we come to a threshold? How do we hold ourselves with care and with grace in times of transition? How can we better understand the cycles we embody, and our callings or leadings in different movements, through the four seasons?

​In this part of the world, Winter can be a time of grounding down, moving inward- trees are bare, water is frozen – the outward world grows quieter and softer, as inner life prepares to bloom in Spring. In this MIDWEEK practice, Eva will guide us through meditation and discussion around what we have been called to hold in Winter.

​Eva Whittaker is a Program Fellow at Beacon Hill Friends House. She grew up in Friends schools in Philadelphia and recently finished a fellowship with Quaker Voluntary Service in Boston. Eva is interested in living the questions how faith and spirituality can ground and deepen how we show up for one another, and what it means to be called to Quaker practice and Quaker community in this moment. She feels called to work at the intersection of spirituality and social justice, and is currently participating in NEYM’s Nurturing Faithfulness program, where she is delighted to be exploring spiritual deepening and how to live in integrity with her values.