“Stopping still and cosying up has become the greatest luxury of our time”
Laura Weir
During the final days of Capricorn season, the earth sign that invests deeply in comfort to balance out all of the striving towards efficient and productive goals, I thought it would be a good opportunity to curl up with a cup of warm cacao and delve into cocooning cosiness, as celebrated so eloquently by Laura Weir in her hug of a book ‘Cosy – the British art of comfort’.
Early on, Laura makes the important distinction from the Britishness of ‘cosy’ compared with the ‘hygge hype’ which took a Danish way of life and made it into a mainstream trend that has been hard to escape over the last few years. Despite the essence of hygge being defined as a “quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being”, there soon came a consumerist slant that took us far away from its well-intended roots, (see The Hygge Conspiracy, The Guardian).
On the contrary, cosy is understated, often spontaneous, not contrived – it is authentic, imperfect and it is very personal.
Similar to Dolly Alderton’s epiphany in ‘A Note on Cosiness’ at the beginning of the book, I too, have experienced a reverse transformation from butterfly to cocoon, metamorphosing from the ultimate social butterfly (circa 2004-7), to a real homebody with a deep recognition that, as Dolly says “life can be just as wild and precious in the quiet as it is in the noise”.
I used to dread and detest the winter months; the biting cold and the plunging darkness, and often dreamed up ways to emigrate to sunnier climes. Yet I now embrace the time of year that gifts us the permission to hunker down, to rest, nest and restore, ready to slowly unfold and emerge with the first signs of spring.
On the subject of hibernation, like Laura, I work with the press on a daily basis and am bombarded with constant, often anxiety-inducing news and a stream of information all day long (as we all are, via newsfeeds delivered directly to our phones).
I have learnt that our environment and how we choose to surround ourselves, indeed shapes us. Everything we take in to our bodies is absorbed into our cells – a belief that certainly reframes what it means to be ‘healthy’ in a well-rounded sense. In order to balance the onslaught of media messaging, I aim to soften my edges where possible and I like Laura’s ‘I am cosy’ mantra, “as light-hearted as it is profound”.
For me, softening the edges sometimes means surrounding myself with a warm palette (think ‘Spiced Honey’, Dulux’s 2019 Colour of Year, which incidentally, is growing on me…) and layering up with tangible textile tactility, but there is also an internal element, a cosy state of mind.
I try to be aware of treating myself with enveloping kindness whilst being mindful not to build up barriers to the outside world which could block a flow of feeling. In fact, I prescribe to the wisdom of late philosopher and poet John O’Donohue who recommended keeping “something beautiful in your heart” at all times, in his book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.
Mulling over my receptivity to sensory softness leads me to the realisation that my experience of ‘cosy’ is far from a long list of hygge-style covetable objects, but is instead a string of relatable yet one-of-a-kind, mindful moments that conjure up feelings of being at home.
Some things that conjure up cosy for me:
*Soul food
*Soulmates/family
*A warm glow
*Firelight
*Mistiness
*Zero plans days
*Starlit sky
*Late afternoon sunshine
*Snow days
*Moon-gazing
*A well-worn sofa
*Storytelling
*A library of books
*Lavender
*Mulled spices
*Dark chocolate
*Rain on the windowpane
*Savasana
