A Winter’s Breath
The chicken coop after a snow storm
December, month of the shortest day of the year. I love its darkness. It speaks to my need to go inward. Summers are stressful; I get pulled in too many directions by too many shoulds. I should be outside in the garden. I should be in the study. I should be weeding and seeding. I should be reading and mulling. I should visit the chickens.
It’s all rather like the holiday season, isn’t it? We naturally want to stay in. (It is dark by five, after all. And cold out. Brr.) But then there are the holiday parties, the dinners and celebrations, all of which pull us out of ourselves and into rushing, away from the old days that allowed for grounding and recovery. We humans are so far from a seasonal approach to life, aren’t we? Far from those roots that connected us to nature.
I’m trying to reconnect. I want to be brave enough to go into the woods, breathe in the tree energy, walk and explore. But honestly? Stepping outside and heading into the woods, the great outdoors, discomfits me, especially at the crepuscular hours. Bobcats and bears might not attack me—though they might—but they bring to mind more dangerous critters: Mountain lions. Rabid porcupines. Most especially, humans with guns. And so I do not feel safe in the woods. I prefer to stay inside, spelunking in my Jungian mind, exploring paths that lead directly into the landscapes of past trauma and future possibilities.
My introvert self. I’m listening to that self these days. I’m starting to believe her when she says she doesn’t want to go outside. She wants to stay home, withdraw, and declutter, culling books, getting rid of bookshelves. In the newly freed energy, she sits.
And I realize, as she sits — as I sit — that I am breathing with the wind. The buffeting outside, the thrum of the house as it stands up to the whorls. I pace my breath to it. I move from fear of the outside to comfort, from unending shoulds to reflection. I become the wind.
A blessing for these times: I hope any who read this will have the opportunity to do nothing this season — to sit and be with the wind. May you be safe, healthy and happy.