Winter is upon upon us… If you’re like me, this has been a stressful season. I have been irritable and moody… things that are going wrong seem to be more wrong than usual. The deepness of the season is sinking into my bones. The weight of the current state of the world, from the war in the middle east, to the tragedy in Gaza, to the economic crisis, to the ways that life has gotten more and more hectic. There seems to be no time. We are a nation on Prozac. Over medicated and under nurtured. And throw winter into the mix……….. and you have the pains of life, magnified. What I am learning though, is that winter is a very powerful time. It is a symbol of life and death. This is the cycle of death and rebirth, of disintegration and renewal that controls all Life on the Earth.. including me and including you. It is the time that although motion ceases… at the same moment, Life begins to stir again. Animals go into hibernation and seeds sleep deep beneath the snow. They will not move until the spring, but deep within them a process has completed itself. There is an infinite contraction of energy that the long nights and cold days reflect. This energy reaches its limit, and the cycle reverses itself. From that moment on, even though the winter will continue to gather strength and unfold as it must… the spring has been born. And with the birth of spring… the seeds of summer are sown, and the harvests of the summer with it.
This is a dark and trying season… It is a season that is repeated in your life again and again. Each tragedy, loss, failure, and humiliation reaches its inmost movement, spends its energy, and from that long journey another begins—a journey towards warmth…and a journey towards light… One season will always follow the other…. they do not exist apart.
These seasons of the year, and seasons of your life, come and go, complete themselves and give way to each other whether you are aware of the dynamics that controls them or not. If you are not, the seasons appear to have lives of their own and you forget they are each part of a cycle—a cycle that you have encountered many times before and will encounter many times again. Your life is built on this cycle of seasons — and on the continual repetition of them. The arrival of winter, and the coming of darkness and death, initiates the coming of light and life. This cycle controls the unfolding of your life and all within it.
When you are aware of this cycle, you can participate in it… You cannot stop the death that comes in the winter… but you can determine in the winter what will be born in the spring. You can contribute your intelligence and wisdom and will… to the intelligence and movement of a dynamic larger than you. You can plant the seed that will sprout in the spring that will lay the foundation for a different winter to come after the summer that has yet to arrive. You can only do this for yourself.
This is the power of the deep winter…. It challenges you, confronts you, and shows you what you can and must change in yourself. It is a holy and precious season… and it illuminates your holy and precious life. It is your potential beckoning to you… disguised as an adversary, a tragedy, or a disaster. Will the adversary, tragedy or disaster shape your experience, or will you shape your experience of it? Will your fears overwhelm you, or will they show you new and different ways to respond to them?
At the solstice the Sun stands still for three days (solstice means standstill) meaning that it rises in the same place for three days running. This period is a sacred window, an opening, a gap in the fabric of the year, during which we can come to terms with our past, connect with our purpose, listen to our guidance, and prepare psychologically for the gradual movement into the new year. These dates mark the shortest days of the year.. and the longest Nights.
It’s always darkest before the dawn, isn’t it?
This year the Solstice was exact in the US on December 21, 2008 at 7:04 AM EST
It as a turning point — the day that marks the return of the sun.
What new life is stirring in you this Deep Winter?
~inspired by The Seat of the Soul
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