Winter Returns

There is snow outside my window again. The spruce branches are frosted with white. There is a soft white cushion on the stone bench in my garden. Every tree, every bush, every remaining flower stalk seems dressed for a special day. It is a special day.


After weeks of snow and cold a brief January thaw seemed like a welcome respite from a winter that arrived to early and appeared likely to stay to long. But this thaw brought with it a deep fog that tied up highways and killed those who believed they could see through it. It brought tornadoes that destroyed homes and rains that flooded others.

Winter rules in January in Wisconsin. I, for one, am glad to see it return. It is the season for snow and ice sparkling on the trees. For deep cold and deeper reflections. For long nights with time to read and time to contemplate what it is you have just read. For the clarity that comes from walking in a natural world colored in shades of white and gray and evergreen.

Sometimes in the late afternoon when the sun is already beginning to set, I resent the shortness of winter's days. I fight against the darkness and refuse to let my mind and body move with the rhythm of the season.


But right now, in this precious morning hour, I intend to light a candle and absorb the power of this very special time of beginnings.


The seeds that fell to the ground in fall and were planted by nature's (not man's) hand are covered in warm snow, moisture, and darkness. Deep inside each seed the living entity that will emerge in the spring is beginning to germinate, to become what it is meant to be.


So it is with us. Darkness is not our enemy. Rather it is the place where we can go to grow, to find ourselves, and to prepare for emerging into the light.

Namaste

Spiral of Life

The Circle of Life. How often do use that concept to describe the beautiful in life as well as to alleviate the pain of life's sorrows? It seems even the ancient Greeks reflected on the Circle of Life. A friend recently sent me this beautiful quote from a Greek philosopher who lived around the 6th century BCE:

"Out of life comes death, and out of death, life,
Out of the young, the old, and out of the old, the young
Out of waking, sleep and out of sleep, waking
The stream of creation and dissolution never stops."
Heraclitus

But I believe life is not a circle. I believe life is a spiral. I believe we move through iterations of life with a plan, with a purpose. As we spiral we move towards something rather than just circling through endless repetitions.

Each turn on our eternal but not endless spiraling pathway moves us closer to the center, closer to universal consciousness, closer to truth, closer to God, closer to love.

And so this month we begin another trip around the sun, following another turn in the spiral of our lives, moving ever closer to where we began.