Winter seems endless about now. Even as the days grow longer, the snow piles deeper. With no discernable effect on the temperature, the returning light seems powerless over the season.
Yet exactly the right things are happening to bring life to a frozen landscape, even if the wintry scene appears unfazed. The earth continues its cyclical journey, progressing through the incremental changes that carry us into spring and the miracle of a new season.
But if spring were dependent on human motivation, it might be a different story.
If I committed to a vision and faithfully took a small step toward it every single day, I would want to see something happen. If I had begun a practice at the winter solstice, I would want to see some evidence of change by now. I would suspect I was wasting my time unless I could see some tangible result. Without that, I would probably be tempted to quit.
And then how would spring ever arrive?
I’m asking myself what small steps I need to be taking now. What does springtime look like for you, and what kind of steps might carry you towards it?
For me winter is a much more precious and rare thing than spring. Winter transforms the entire world in a single night, and i wake to something strange and white and precious. Precious in part because soon enough it will melt. It reminds me of the fragility of humanity’s place in the universe at the same time as it gives a gift of beauty that takes human eyes to see. Spring, on the other hand, will come screaming out of the ground all around us soon enough. It asks us to plant, to grow, to do things more or less familiarly human. Winter is other and strange, maybe because at its heart is frozen water, the fluid of life stopped for a little while so that we can see things we would never see while it is in motion.
Steve
I appreciate your description of how it feels to marvel at a snowfall, Steve. I think the deepest quiet is a world covered in snow. And it’s wonderful to awaken and feel like I’m in Narnia!
I also like the idea of motion frozen in the snow and ice, with the chance to observe what we might otherwise miss, and to see the world as new and even a little bit strange. A sacred snowfall. Thank you.