I have found myself at war with the season. The fall colors here in Virginia were absolutely amazing this year and yet I found myself feeling melancholy about it. Now that the color is gone and the temperatures are dropping to the 30's and lower at night I am downright resistant. Winter is always a hard season for me. I don't like being cold and I just love the long, warm days and nights of summer.
Winter is also a time of slowing down, hibernation, looking within. Yet as a culture we seem to get busier and busier. We pack the days and nights. Why is it that we resist so strongly the call to slow down, to hibernate?
I know that in part there is something that is calling me to slow down, to look within and yet I am resiting. As a spiritual practice I use Tarot Cards this year is my hermit year. A year to journey within, to explore my inner self and seek solitude. Yet I have been busier than ever, immersing myself in my outer life.
Parker Palmer in his book A Hidden Wholeness, describes winter as a time "to name whatever feels dead in us, to wonder whether it might in fact be dormant--and to ask how we can help it, and ourselves, 'winter through.'" (Palmer, 82)
I/we run so far from the inner life, running from what I/we might find within. Yet the soul it does not stop calling and I/we know that. I know that i can choose to stop and listen or at some point the soul will just make me stop. Can I learn to stop resisting, to stop fighting? Can I learn to face my fears of looking within>
Could one day I learn to love the winter?
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