The days yawn quickly. Leaving us in the throes of long dark evenings. How will you spend yours?
Every winter I grow excited. Rooms illuminated with just a candle or four. The world becomes more silent. The darkness wraps around, like it could keep every secret you have. With our boundless potential as humans, what will we do with this time?
Will this be the winter we write a book? Take on some new study? Or simply self-reflect on the year coming to an end? We have this special time, to be away from the loud, to take the opportunity to develop our phoenix wings. Growing them quietly. Ready to burst out when spring comes. Look out world! I’m a new person. Again.
While at home, it’s like everything is amplified. The furniture and decor. Those things that irritated you before become unbearable in this dark and quiet. It all comes under hyper-focus. Will you choose to shed all the projects and material things that don’t fit the person you are becoming?
We can try and muddle through. If we can manage that luxury. However, the larger question is coming. It looms towards us. Like a high speed train coming out of a tunnel. Ready to hit your consciousness full on. Who am I? What do I value? Am I living any of who I want to be? There’s no one to distract the train. It’s coming. It’s our chance to evaluate. The gift that no one asks for, but receives every year anyway.
I always felt that the stars were a witness. The longer they were out, the longer they were watching. If I am not living in integrity, then they witness my lies. How many days of winter can you move through, knowing that the stars see what parts of you that you have abandoned?
I pick up a couple of short term, low effort projects. I start to study thinking that they will just satisfy a passing interest. But the Universe knows exactly what it is doing. My soul awakens. My emotions come at me like that train. Alone in this darkness, I want to cry as everything inside me sparks. Like I’ve been training for these moments my whole life. I am becoming my destiny, every winter.
"The Breeze at Dawn Has Secrets to Tell You. Don’t Go Back to Sleep." - Rumi