A Swedish Woman Helps Me Thrive Through Winter
Winter and I haven't gotten along very well in years. It would be a painful, depressing time as the cold and damp would get into my bones and feel like it was freezing me from the inside out. A few years ago I would dread the onset of winter, fear it, even. Then, I started watching a remarkable woman who lives in the rural north of Sweden.
Jonna Jinton lives in a tiny village near the Arctic Circle in Sweden. Several years ago, she abandoned her normal urban modernist life to live a dream. Her dream has come true, and then some!
I first "met" Jonna through an adorable little meme video that went viral on Facebook. As the northern hemisphere was nearing spring, Jonna's video of her trudging through waist-deep snow in a pretty dress to hang her laundry and enjoy the sunshine caught my attention. Since then, I was intrigued by her living and, yes, even struggling through her dream.
One thing that spoke to me, though, was her love of the harsh, cold, dark Nordic winters. They last longer, are darker, colder, snowier, and more intense than any winter I've endured here in Upstate New York. I've lived through blizzards dumping 3 feet of snow at once, sub zero farenheit temperatures for over a month, and even snow still on the ground on Mother's Day and frost to just before the 4th of July. But, I've never endured a Nordic, almost tundra winter. And Jonna doesn't just endure them. She loves them!
Her joy and appreciation is infectious. I wanted some of that, but I felt like my body would fail me since it didn't seem to agree with the cold at all. I didn't feel invigorated. I felt pain. Terrible pain. The cold is painful.
But, to enjoy the winter is to embrace the winter. The light, the darkness, the beauty, the cold, the cozy, the rest, the cuddling in, the oven baking, the hot tea, snowflakes, the ice formations, the sledding, the wildlife....winter is a magical time!
I also had to be aware of taking care of myself. As Jonna says in this video, you don't expect a flower to bloom in winter....
Jonna is right. Nutrition and movement is key, as well as accepting the rhythm of the seasons.
When you live where the seasons are defined, the more defined they are, the more energy you expend during the warmer months. There's a natural energy flow and need that comes with the sun. Winter, then, is a time for rest and more of an interior life.
As a side note, (and not a sponsorship or affiliation) I wanted to give Jonna's business a shout out. My husband and I purchased new wedding bands from Jonna Jinton Sweden! Our original bands no longer fit us, and being engraved with continuous knotwork, we cannot get the cut and extended. Years of hard labor calloused and thickened his finger, and I was dreadfully thin when we married. So, we decided to start our search for new wedding bands. Nothing really spoke to us until I showed my husband Jonna's online store. We saw the hammered silver bands and fell in love with them!
Purchasing something homemade by an individual, and someone I feel a sense of connection to, even if it is just through social media, just feels so special. It's personal, intimate, and while, of course, we paid for the materials, skill, talent, and time put into the rings, it feels like a gift. A gift from Sweden. A gift from a dream come true.
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