Fire & Ice

Winter in Jackson Hole is a season of extremes, yet within those contrasts lies a quiet call to balance. Outside, temperatures plunge well below freezing, winds sweep down from the mountains and snow piles overnight into shoulder-high drifts. Yet inside, in our homes, bodies and communities, we search for warmth, we turn to elemental rituals, ancient and modern, to keep ourselves steady in a season that demands endurance, surrender and renewal.

Across the valley, people are meeting winter on its own terms: through fire and ice, breath and stillness, darkness and starlight. These practices are ways of getting through the cold months, invitations to listen to the season, reminders that within its extremes, renewal quietly takes root.

Marking Time: Solstice and Equinox Ceremonies

For master sattva yoga teacher and community ritual leader Deidre Norman, the turning points of the year are opportunities for realignment. She marks each solstice and equinox with immersive, day-long ceremonies that mirror the natural cycles: the deep rest of winter, the renewal of spring, the abundance of summer, the letting-go of autumn.

Participants move through a carefully woven arc of practices: kriya to release old patterns, breathwork to sink deeper into the self, journaling and intention-setting, sound healing and honoring of the elements. The day culminates in a fire ceremony, a symbolic act of transformation and renewal.

“These seasonal rituals are not only personal but profoundly communal,” Deidre said. “Anything done in community is amplified. When we come together in ritual, it has a ripple effect, helping us center, reconnect with nature and show up to life more fully.”

She has witnessed a growing interest in such practices in Jackson, as more people turn toward slow, restorative experiences over competitive, performance-driven approaches to wellness. In her view, winter’s stillness is essential medicine for the nervous system; a time to pause, gather and reset, much like the quiet blanket of snow where the seeds of renewal rest unseen.

Looking Up: Stargazing in the Crisp of Winter

I still remember the first time I joined a Wyoming Stargazing night with my boys when they were little. Sam Singer pointed out the Milky Way, and the child in me was instantly mesmerized, awed by the sweep of light across the black sky, as if time had folded and I was staring into the origins of everything.

Sam first fell in love with stargazing at age ten in rural Nevada, where nights were filled with meteors, comets, and lunar eclipses viewed alongside his dad. Later, in Jackson, he discovered skies as pristine as those of his childhood and began running weekly winter stargazing programs while studying at the Teton Science Schools. Those nights sparked what would become Wyoming Stargazing, now a nonprofit that has opened the night sky to more than 20,000 children, plus countless adults. Their tagline: “Serving up some Cosmic SOUP (Sense of Universal Place) All-Year Long!”

“While the harshness of winter in Jackson Hole frightens many potential stargazers away, there are rewards for those who brave the cold,” Sam said. “The sharpness of the night sky in winter in Jackson Hole is unparalleled due to the reduced water vapor that can be held by the colder atmosphere. The stars seem to shine brighter, in greater contrast against the darkness of space around them. Something will have left us as a species if we ever lose sight of the stars. They are literally etched into our DNA. The piercing cold of winter nights reminds us better than the other seasons of our origins as star people.”

Today, in addition to in-person programs, Wyoming Stargazing is expanding into online education and developing an animated series. Sam also served as an advisor for the new Snow King Observatory and Planetarium, where he plans to conduct research after hours, continuing his mission to keep our gaze turned upward.

Elemental Extremes: Contrast Therapy and Sauna Culture

In winter, the play between heat and cold becomes an art. Across the valley, people are turning to contrast therapy, alternating between intense heat and bracing cold, as a way to boost circulation, improve recovery and sharpen mental clarity.

Paige Byron, the executive director of Astoria Park Conservancy, who studied contrast therapy under Marcus Coplin (Director of Hydrothermal Medicine Board President) from the Balneology Association of North America (BANA) and is the current board president of the Hot Springs Association, said: “At Astoria, we’ve seen how the simple rhythm of moving between hot and cold can have a profound effect on people’s well-being. The warmth of the soaking pools encourages muscles to relax and blood vessels to open, while the cold plunge naturally stimulates circulation, reduces inflammation and provides a refreshing reset for the body. But it’s not just physical. That back-and-forth practice creates a meditative moment where guests become deeply present — their breath slows, their focus sharpens and many describe a sense of emotional balance and resilience. It’s a timeless practice, rooted in traditions around the world, that aligns beautifully with our mission to create spaces where people can reconnect with themselves and with nature.”

The Jackson Hole Recreation Center offers a sauna, steam room and hot tub, a reliable, affordable way to warm up after a ski or skate. For more variety, the Athletic Club provides a day-pass experience with three kinds of saunas (infrared, dry, and steam), cold plunges and a hot tub.

Some locals take it further: mobile saunas like Hygge Hut Sauna now pop up around town, and backyard barrel saunas are becoming a fixture in certain neighborhoods. The pull toward this ancient rhythm, from Finnish saunas to Indigenous sweat lodges, taps into something elemental: the way our bodies, like the land itself, can adapt to extremes.

Breath Meets Snow

Mindful breathing is a practice that belongs to every season. In winter, it takes on a particular clarity, whether on a cushion indoors or standing outside in the cold air. Community and mindfulness leader

Sara Flitner, founder of Becoming Jackson Whole, teaches practices that anchor awareness through the breath. As Sara put it: “My favorite practice for all seasons is the same simple one: three breaths. Three deep, slow breaths, noticing what is unique to this season, this weather system outside and the one inside our own experience.”

On a snowy morning, step outside and let your breath mirror the season. Inhale slowly, feeling the cold air at the tip of your nose. Exhale gently, releasing the weight of thought into the silence around you. Each cycle of breath becomes like a falling snowflake: quiet, deliberate, grounding. When the world feels scattered, the breath can be a steadying force.

Flitner often emphasizes that presence is accessible anywhere, anytime, but winter carries a special invitation. In the silence of snow-dusted pines, breath and season converge, guiding us back into rhythm with the natural world.

Winter Breathwork in Practice

Not all winter rituals require a roaring fire or a plunge into icy water. Sometimes the heat we need is the kind we generate from within.

For Sarah Kline, Kundalini yoga teacher and clinical counselor, breath is both a physical and mental fire-starter. “As we approach the fall and winter months, Breath of Fire can be effective for a number of reasons,” she explained. “It boosts immunity, increases oxygenation and generates internal heat. It helps combat fatigue and can bring us into a meditative, neutral mind. This breath also helps release stored emotions and stress, promoting emotional well-being.”

Practiced in the chill of early morning, these fire-building breaths become a kind of internal hearth, steadying the mind as they energize the body. In a valley where long nights and short days can weigh heavy, this simple act of breathing with intention is a reminder: we carry our own warmth.

Native Practices

Anthropologist Åke Hultkrantz, who devoted his life to studying Shoshone traditions, wrote that high mountains, like the Tetons, were seen as sacred, inhabited by spirits. That truth lives on in the words of spiritual teacher Brandy Tuttle, whose Native lineage spans Flathead, Yakima, Umatilla, Colville, and Sioux roots. “We all come from something more,” she said. For her, the natural world reveals the circle within us, while the “doing world” is a square. “You can’t put a square in a circle, but you can put a circle with the square,” she said. In Lakota, that circle is the hochoka, the sacred center of ceremony within each of us.

Winter, Brandy reminds, is the season for returning to that center. The Lakota spirit of the North, Wazíya, brings the snow’s blanket of dormancy, preparing the way for renewal. The solstice is the true Native New Year, celebrated with gratitude and readiness. Practices such as the hanbleceya (vision quest), sweat lodges and offerings of food, water and prayer are ways of listening to spirit and to the ancestors. Even in the quiet act of a tea ceremony, when herbs are prayed over and offered to the four directions, the circle is renewed. In learning from these native traditions, we’re reminded to seek our own stillness, to sit with the seasons, and to listen for the guidance that emerges when we give space to ceremony.

In a valley shaped by extremes, these winter rituals remind us that balance is found by listening to the elements, by leaning into its fire and ice, its breath and stillness, and discovering, in the process, our own center.