It’s such a cliché and we are so clever…why would we submit to a winter of self?
And yet comes... It came for me.
It came first as a seasonal melancholy, then followed by abrupt and senseless loss…which in turn cut a core belief off at the knees…a belief I held with out question. Feet stood firm but there was a death of ideals along with the comfort of knowing were lost. So I slipped in through the quiet of sorrow to the abyss of the void, retreating into a barren winter within.
There is a sanity in following the rhythms of nature, however dark and long the nights... But even knowing the nature of seasons, I found it tricky to steal time to properly morn, dissolve, or dismantle myself these days. I thought about the necessity of time to reboot the soul, cut loose of the known, to deepen and regenerate while I was in darkness, not blogging, and keeping the company of self…in-between like 32 family gatherings, holidays, birthdays, work, big family and never ending obligations.
Seasons and loss of all kinds happen, and in the end the body will die. Man’s quest for knowledge and power, along with our pathological repression of nature have done little to change the outcome of the game, death still comes…Or so I contemplated in the dark of my winter…
The world got dark, cold, my dog died, rain fell and life sucked, but then the days got longer, warmer, our spring sprung froth to feed and fill the pond, crows courted and a new puppy is on the way. I don’t need to have a vision board to imagine spring. It’s the natural procession of life.
Big smile… I think about the primitives and pagans, simple folk, celebrating the return of the sun, spring, harvest, the quiet of the dead and then a return of life… Can I play too? I want to celebrate the return of the sun but only after having had the privilege to feel its disappearance. I want the quiet of the night, and opportunity to compost emotional and mental debris in the vacuous void. And I’ll trust that spring will let me know when its time to return…
But I must ponder… Who thought to put New Years in the dead of winter? There is nothing natural about celebrating new beginnings when the life which surrounds still lays dormant. Chinese’s New Years on the other hand came this week. It’s the year of the tiger, disruption and change! Perhaps we can change the date of New Years.
The sun is back, the pond is full, the garden wants expanding. Our business, held hostage for months in a bureaucratic winter of Washington DC is poised to get final blessing from the USDA. Call it coincidence or spring… The word feels renewed and my need has changed from isolation to engagement. It’s magic…
