Start of Winter 立冬

What it marks

Winter begins and the year turns inward. In the old calendar this is when the harvest was formally complete and the season of rest and ritual began.

Traditionally favours

• rest
• study
• nourishment
• planning next year

A well-regarded window for thinking and preparing, and a poor one for launching.

These are the tradition’s tendencies, not guarantees — and a solar term describes a stretch of weeks, so for a specific day check today’s almanac, which reads the day’s own 宜 and 忌.