Winter is not most people's favorite season. When asked, most people would tell you that they prefer Spring or Fall over Winter, or even Summer. Winter and Summer are months of extremes. Winter is generally associated with endings; dying, end of life, withdrawal, cold, darkness, lifelessness, end of a cycle, etc. But it is also a season of gifts, of things necessary, of wisdom.
1. The necessity of darkness. Many years ago I had a spiritual teacher who introduced me to the idea of darkness as the most significant spiritual tool to awakening. He believed it to be a great teacher; far more powerful than light actually. In the West we have been trained to be afraid of the dark and to associate it with things that are dangerous, spooky, evil, harmful, unknown and threatening. It is not a big stretch then to associate wintertime, in which we experience the shortest days of the year, with darkness and all the false associations with it. Here's a mini spiritual retreat for you to do at home around the theme of darkness - winter is the perfect time to do this:
https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/features/view/28374/mini-retreat-spiritual-work-with-darkness
2. Winter sits at the doorstep of spring. Always. The seasons are not linear. There is no endpoint. There is no end of a cycle. The seasons, cycles, and all of life, are cyclical. In winter, the plants of summer die, and then, with eagerness, break forth in a new expression of life from deep in the mother's soil in spring. Winter offers us a right understanding of endings that lead to beginnings. Winter offers us a new way to understand death. The Book of Common Prayer says about the loss of one we have loved but see no longer: "Life has changed, not ended." Death is never an ending for the person who dies - it is a transition - a returning to things eternal. For the living however, we experience what we perceive as the ending, or at the very least, the pausing of a relationship. But there is no final, permanent winter. As winter sits at the doorstep of spring, so too, does death sit on the doorstep of rebirth.
3. The gift of hibernation. Creation has been arranged in such a way as to meet all our needs. One of the gifts of winter is hibernation. When I lived in upstate PA everyone hibernated during the most brutal months of the year - January through March. Sunny days were rare and travel was often hazardous. We stayed home and burned the wood we'd cut and stacked all year. We went to bed early and we slept in - following the cycle of the shorter days. We ate hearty, heavier meals - stews and rich soups, lots of roasted root vegetables instead of cooling salads - to warm the body. We spent more time indoors with family and close friends. Winter is a good time to spend time with God. Wrap up in a blanket and sit in dark and ask the Spirit, blowing in with the winter winds, to instruct you, to comfort you, to prepare you for the coming of spring.
Some months ago I wrote a blog on the fall season and invite you to review it. I am writing reflections on all the seasons of the year as they appear over this year.
https://perfectionundone.blogspot.com/2021/11/three-things-three-perspectives-of-fall.html
Thank you for reading my blog and walking with me in the path of spiritual grace; for your willingness to spend this time with me as together we learn how to see and be Christ in the world. Rowena +
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