Winter is a time of regeneration: we’ll miss it when it’s gone | Aeon Ideas

…The devastating effects of these changes on the Earth's natural ecosystems should be our most urgent concern. But we might also consider what we will miss, philosophically and spiritually, if winter as we know it disappears in the Anthropocene.

Winter, for me, is a period of reflection and regeneration, of withdrawal, reminiscent of a time when humans were forced to be more malleable and responsive to the seasons. Each year, I long to see the landscape around my home in Germany transformed by the cold: frost-limned trees, crisp air, and snow shrouding everything, muffling every sound, as if covering over the acoustic evidence of humanity.

But human intervention will affect the phenomenology of winter. This is not just because of meteorological change. Knowing that the caprices of the weather are caused by us, as much as by any 'natural' process, changes how we experience the seasons: our relation to them, the respect and interest we accord them, and the way that they affect our perception of our place in the world.

For me, the experience of real, unbridled cold is what lets me relish the warmth and release of summer. In a sense, both seasons depend on each other. Albert Camus reminds us of this dialectic of seasonal anticipation: 'In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.' 

https://aeon.co/ideas/winter-is-a-time-of-regeneration-well-miss-it-when-its-gone