This has always been one of my favorite times of year, this close of one year and opening into another. Perhaps because of the slower pace, I’m very aware of the opportunities within each challenge. The darkness feels oppressive - until I learn to sink in, to appreciate reach ray of sunshine, each sunrise, each sunset. The cold seeps into my bones and feels restricting - until I remember, again, to wear my lined pants and turn on my heating pad and take warm baths and drink warm tea all day. The wind is biting – until I remember to breathe in deep the refreshing crispness of the winter air, each breath new, each breath renewing. The colors feel drab until I remember to look for texture as well as vibrancy, and to appreciate the brilliant red of a cardinal against the new, pure white snow and the vast blue of a rare sunny day that takes my breath away.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for a snowstorm as I am for the one that barreled through the Northeast this week. It feels like such a gift, the white and blues of this crystallized water that surrounds us bringing light and play and newness and abundance when I’ve been so easily sucked into fear and darkness and scarcity. I’m grateful for the snowplows whose sound I’ve come to know and love, grateful for my dad and brother and their plows and tractors and time and muscle that cleared the driveway. I’m grateful to the earth that gave me the squash and sweet potatoes and potatoes that our spring hands planted and our summer hands weeded and our fall hands harvested, my winter hands now chopping and mashing, my mouth receiving the magic of sunshine transmuted into food to be transmuted into energy for my legs to walk the fields that received that sunshine and grew those fruits this year.
I love this time of year because I give myself permission to be very introspective, to assess where I’ve come from and look ahead to where I’m going. To send cards of thanks and connection to those in my life and see how that list has grown!! To eat the delicious peaches picked on a steamy July day and feel love for what was and appreciation for what is right now and joyful anticipation of what will be again. To sit in a snow bank and receive precious vitamin D with so much love and gratitude for the necessary energy it brings me. To slow down, to reflect, to sink in, to celebrate, and to enjoy. This year, especially, I’m amazed by the resilience of humanity, taught to us by the earth, and by the renewing, cyclical lessons available to me in each walk by the river, insights and intuitions coming within minutes of saying yes to just a small amount of connection to what is outside of my little world of self. Reminding me to keep opening, to keep sinking into that collective consciousness of creativity and possibility all around me.
And I’m so grateful to you for receiving these words, for being part of my journey, and for being part of the interconnected snowpile of life (can that be a thing?). May you find moments of stillness, peace and light during these mysterious days of darkness.
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