There is a Time and Place for Winter

“...if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons...then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter--a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification and regeneration that prepares us for the births of spring.” 

--Linda Leonard as quoted in The Artist’s Rule by Christine Valters Painter

What would happen if I didn’t pick fights with winter? What if I looked at it as a resting point even if that rest might involve lethargic symptoms that in the past have sent me for medical care. What if instead of resisting the inevitable dreary pervasive fog that can shroud my part of the country in gloom for weeks at a time, I surrendered to it as a time for spiritual and creative restoration and paid exquisite attention to every emerging bud, sprout and leaf as a sign of my own rebirth. I’ve never understood in just this way that creative energy goes through similar rhythms to the seasons, to the weeks, to each day. To each there is a dawn and a dusk. To each there is a cycle of fruitfulness and fallowness.

Baruch ata adonai...I’m working hard to make peace with winter, and with my own cycles of creativity. My expectations for winter can evolve and change. I can learn what “creative hibernation” might entail. Feels like climbing a mountain. I can climb mountains. Amen