Learning to embrace winter – ordinary days outside the city.

I hope this video brings you a moment of peace and inspires you to slow down daily life just a little with me. 🌱

🌼 My Instagram:   / lauramarialinden  
💌 Shop my art: https://laura-linden.com

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Hello everyone! The days have been getting shorter, the mornings have been crisper and quieter than they were in the heat of summer when the birds still sang at the top of their lungs. Autumn came quite fast this year for me as we didn’t get the warmest of summers. …And then came winter. Much faster than my heart wanted it to! Usually, by late August, it can’t come fast enough for me, someone who loves cozy nights indoors, spent in a kind of creative hibernation, but this year, I didn’t feel ready for the colder and darker seasons as I struggle with a seasonal sadness every year and 2025 has felt especially heavy. It took me a long time to realize how when we take time to really witness the seasons change, it can change us, too. Since moving to the outskirts of the city after a year of busy city center streets and subways, living much closer to nature and renting an apartment that allows me to garden on my balcony, I have felt much more present and able to listen to what the trees, bees and flowers are able to teach me.
In the past weeks I have personally drowned in work and made a whole lot of preparations for 2026, which will likely be one of my most intense years of life yet, but more on that in a different video. Regardless of my work filled November, I tried to allow for moments that brought me peace and helped me feel like myself, such as taking me on a date to the river on what seems like the most picturesque autumn day. There are few things in life I enjoy as much as cold water on my feet and sitting in the sun surrounded by birdsong and writing in happy solitude. I have been keeping a journal for 10 years now and my writing has almost become a spiritual practice. After filling one and a half shelves with bursting journals, I still turn to my notebook and pen when I need clarity, space to vent or even guidance. At least I am trying to reach for paper and pen more often than for my phone which is a goal that’s getting increasingly harder for me to reach as I think it might for a lot of other people as well. Creativity helps me personally to focus my attention on other things than screens: for example the many hours I spent painting for the launch of my online art store and the first greeting cards I intend to sell.

As autumn came and went by last month, it was then time for me to tidy up my tiny balcony. I removed a lot of wilted flowers and greenery and made some space for a few very modest and unspectacular plants to fill my balcony with at least a bit of life and color for the winter time. If you have any good ideas for winter gardening or ways to improve that sad view of a December garden, please let me know in the comments. I would love to know. But maybe, it is also alright to sit with the lack of color and life for a short period. Maybe I should learn to embrace nature’s death and time of rest, though uncomfortable, to turn inward and trust that one unexpected day, spring will be here again.

This season I also brewed my last batch of kombucha as it feels like a summer drink to me. I love the process of making it and can’t believe how simple, yet healthy it is. I purchased a tiny starter scoby about a year ago and never could I have expected what monster it has grown into today! I already gave half of it to a dear friend and I am still left with layer upon layer of scoby. Our next door neighbours’ apple tree lost a very large branch which allowed them to give everyone interested multiple bags of fresh backyard apples. I thought that was the perfect opportunity to use apples for my second kombucha fermentation. It turned out absolutely delicious!
This is only the second video I am sharing on this channel and while I wan|t expecting anyone to see the first video, I was beautifully surprised to even read some really unexpected kind comments. If you are back here, or new here, thank you so much for watching this video and supporting me on my journey to live my life in a more creative, free and slow way.

Sending you all my love, Laura.

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