The Season We Ignore

Winter, Pagan Memory, and the Modern Epidemic of Seasonal Depression Oh how modern man has conquered winter! Electric lights, heaters, snow tires- what glorious triumphs over nature we have blessed ourselves with! Or have we? If longer nights can be managed with quite literally the flick of a switch, why is winter still so....hard?

In a world of electric lights, climate-controlled rooms, year-round productivity, and relentless expectations to “stay on top of things,” winter is no longer treated as a season with its own rules, rhythms, and spiritual gravity. Instead, we push through the dark months as if nothing has changed. We maintain identical work hours, identical social output, and identical levels of productivity—even when the sun itself has retreated.

But our bodies have not forgotten what winter means, and what our ancestors tried to help us manage through rituals, we have learned to ignore.

Okay witches, let's explore the idea that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) goes beyond a biochemical response to less sunlight—it is also a symptom of a culture that refuses to honor the season designed for slowness, descent, reflection, and repair. We will turn to anthropology, pre-Christian European traditions, modern chronobiology, and pagan practice to examine how winter functioned in ancestral societies—and how reclaiming it may help us survive the dark months with more grace, grounding, and mental health.

Winter in the Pagan Memory:

In pre-Christian Europe—Celtic, Norse, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic—winter was treated as a ritual descent and one of the most spiritually charged periods of the year.

1. Winter as a Sacred Descent

Midwinter festivals such as the Norse Jól (Yule), the Celtic winter observances, the Roman Saturnalia, and numerous solstice rites across Europe were were cosmological landmarks, as well as community events. These were important festivals and spiritual rites marking the death and rebirth of the sun (Price, 2019), the return of ancestral spirits (MacCana, 1983),

the temporary breakdown and reordering of social norms (Frazer; Eliade), and the protection from winter spirits and forces of chaos.

The temporary breakdown of social norms and needing protection from chaos? Wouldn't it be rad if our corporate overlords and shift managers acknowledged that just maybe winter justified an extra mental health day or two and that didn't make you a slacker?

2. Winter Meant Slowing Down

Agricultural and historical scholarship paints a clear picture: winter was a time when labor lessened.

• Fields froze or lay fallow.

• Work moved indoors: mending, carving, weaving, storytelling.

• Days shortened, and people slept more (Shaw, 1996).

Darkness shaped life. Winter demanded rest.

3. Winter Was a Communal Psychological Season

Winter required its own structure to help us endure it.

Communities had shared rituals: ancestor rites, solstice fires, vigils, feasts, the “Twelve

Nights,” divination, house blessings, protective charms.

The dark season had a purpose: descent prepares the world for renewal. Ignoring the descent, in pagan worldview, disrupts the entire cycle.

Modernity: The Culture That Pretends Winter Isn’t Happening

Now zoom forward into the fluorescent, buzzing, insistent present.

1. Our Bodies Shift, But Our Lives Don’t

Seasonal Affective Disorder is the body whispering (or in my case SCREAMING and seemingly attempting to hold me hostage) that winter still matters. Research has shown that SAD is linked to shortened daylight, delayed circadian phases, longer nightly melatonin secretion, and seasonal serotonin shifts (Rosenthal et al., 1984; Murray et al., 2021). But biology is only half the story. Cross-cultural sleep studies remind us that humans living closer to the natural world don’t fight winter the way we do. Communities without electric lighting or modern work schedules consistently sleep longer in winter, fall asleep earlier, wake later, and naturally slow their daily activities as the light declines (Yetish et al., 2015; de la Iglesia et al., 2018). In other words: humans are meant to change with winter. We were designed for a softer rhythm, a deeper rest, and a gentler pace as the nights stretch long. Modern life doesn’t allow that shift, so our bodies protest on our behalf—through mood, exhaustion, and a longing for a season we’ve learned to ignore.

2. Electric Light Makes Us Act Like It’s August

Nighttime screens deliver “summer sun” to the retina at 11pm. Indoor mornings deliver “dim cave dawn” to the brain.

This mismatch undermines circadian stability, which is directly correlated with mood regulation (Chang et al., 2015; Walker, 2017).

3. Modern Life Erases Seasonal Variation

In capitalist economies and productivity-centric cultures:

• December is Q4

• January is “New Year, New You” hustle

• Work hours remain unchanged

• School semesters ignore sunrise

There is no acknowledgment that winter is a biologically heavy season.

We are asked to perform bright-sun behavior in deep darkness.

4. Isolation Replaces Communal Wintering

So, we can see this next point in the residual holidays that have been passed down to us. Winter was meant to be communal. Fireside gatherings, ritual feasts, shared tasks—cold months were built around togetherness. But this was in conjunction with working less and taking things slower. Oftentimes (so much so we've written parody songs and made movies about it), our modern life has even turned the communal part into a nightmare. With work still be required of us, community can feel like a hassle too. But there's another side too. Often, modern winter can be painfully solitary. More time indoors alone, fewer gatherings, fragmented families, and digital communication trying—but failing—to replicate presence. Loneliness is a major amplifier of seasonal depression (Cacioppo, 2015), and when you put that together with the way we flatten winter into “business as usual,” you end up with a cultural environment that actively works against human neurobiology. The modern problem isn’t just the lack of sunlight. It’s that we’ve culturally erased winter’s purpose, pace, and meaning—then wonder why our spirits and bodies revolt.

Reclaiming the Season We Ignore:

Please do not take this as a substitute for therapy, medication, or light-based treatment. It is a culturally aware, spiritually grounded, body-honoring supplement to them. A suggestion to try this on and see if it helps.

1. Rebuild Your Relationship to Light

Science supports: 10,000 lux within 30 minutes of waking.

Pagan practice supports: honoring the morning light as a returning deity.

Try:

• a “Sun Rebirth Altar” with evergreen, quartz, and candles

• a daily winter tea (rosemary, mint, elderflower—check interactions)

• a sun-invoking chant or whisper-prayer

• sitting by a window like an ancient cat who knows what’s good for her

2. Allow Yourself Seasonal Permission

Do less. Sleep more. Eat heavier. Move slower.

Write this somewhere you see it daily:

Winter is allowed to be heavy. I am allowed to be slow.

Consider this a participation in a 300,000-year-old rhythm.

3. Restore Winter Rituals

Choose one or two:

• A Yule log ritual

• The Twelve Nights observance

• A winter ancestor altar

• A Fallow Journal for everything you release until spring

• A winter divination series

• A protection spell for the dark season

Ritual restores the psychic container winter used to have.

4. Create Communal Wintering

Don't have a village? No worries, you only need two or three people.

Try:

• winter tea circles

• low-light crafting nights

• a solstice gathering

• shared reading evenings

• potluck soups

• a monthly “dark storytelling” night

Winter becomes survivable when shared.

5. Align Work Rhythms to the Sun Where Possible

Even small changes regulate mood:

• delay strenuous work until after sunrise

• dim lights after dusk

• use amber bulbs or candles at night

• step outside for 5 minutes of natural daylight every few hours

• end the day with a dusk ritual

Rebel, resist, and reclaim those ancient seasonal labor practices!

Winter isn't the Enemy.

Seasonal Affective Disorder tells us something our culture refuses to hear:

The body remembers winter even when society does not.

We are suffering not only from a lack of sunlight, but from the loss of winter’s meaning—winter’s permission, winter’s rituals, winter’s rest, winter’s community.

Don't try to power through winter. A pagan winter is to be a remembered winter: slow, sacred, shadowed, communal, cyclical, and alive.

And in honoring it, we may finally stop ignoring the season that has always held us, shaped us, and—if we let it—healed us, recharged us.