“There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line.”

-Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

• “Each winter Art Shanty Projects hosts an immersive art program on a frozen lake in Minneapolis. Artists embrace the challenges and opportunities of winter and the ephemeral nature of a frozen winter landscape to create a temporary vibrant and colorful public art community.” This winter’s Art Shanty Project will take place on Lake Harriet, and will start on Saturday January 20th and continue for 4 weekends.

• Starting January 25th, the Great Northern Sauna Village will be a good opportunity to warm up! The Sauna Village is “a social and therapeutic experience hosted at Malcolm Yards. During 60-90- minute Steam Sessions, guests can explore various types of traditional wood-fired saunas—including barrel, mobile, and backyard units; tent and floatings saunas; and a new shipping container event sauna for 20+ people—all while experiencing multiple forms of heat, steam, and aromatherapy with the cold contrast therapy of winter air and snow”. (tickets start at $40)

Archetype of the Month - from Liana

Incubation

“The shell of the cosmic egg is the world frame of space, while the fertile seed-power within typifies the inexhaustible life-dynamism of nature.”

-Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Images evoked when considering this liminal incubation space include an egg (a powerful symbol found in creation myths featuring a “cosmic egg”), seed, womb, or maybe a cave or hibernation den. 

If a bear emerged from their den before the time was right, they might face a threat to their survival through continued lack of food. Though the delineation between the right and wrong time to hatch a new behavior, way of being, or part of self can be less clear, we can enter curious dialogue to learn more. Dream incubation is a process by which we might try to develop that dialogue with the embryonic generative substance (Unconscious? Divine? Part of self? Who’s to say!) that holds the seeds of selves not yet realized.  

(I considered that the archetype might just be called “egg,” but that seemed a little scrambled.)

Image Credit: Painting by Vladimir Kush. Sunrise By the Ocean. 1991

Creature of the Month - from Kenna

Kangaroo

The journey of a baby Kangaroo, a joey, is an odd one. The start of its existence is quite different from other creatures. At a month old, a Joey emerges from its mother’s uterus. Then the joey instinctually crawls on the outside of the mother’s body into the pouch. Here it grows for nine more months. After that, a joey has grown enough to leave the pouch and hop to its hearts content.

This journey has parallels to the potential that winter holds. Winter can be an intentional period of rest. Rest is essential to gaining one's strength. The journey to the pouch represents the new year. Many of us are currently plotting our yearly goals. To complete these goals, however, we need energy! And strength! We need time to cook in the pouch. With the emergence of warmer weather, we may feel ready to venture out on our own. Just like the little joey.

Winter can be the perfect time to nestle into our cozy homes as we ponder the year ahead. Indulge in the necessary rest needed for personal growth. When the sun reappears in a few months, we may feel ready to exit the womb and hop into the sunset. Now may not necessarily be the time to dive into something new, but rather, a time to re-energize for changes ahead. 

Thanks for reading!