Lessons of the Whispering Winter Wind

Winter is upon us. The taste of it is delivered by the tips of the wind as the purity of the colder air brings memories of Christmas time, football playoffs, and snow angels past. I can hear its sound mingle with the rhythm of computer keys being struck as I type, making music that captures the season. It’s the sound of flames escaping up the chimney with the wind created therein, alongside the occasional pop of the wood, which, no matter how often I hear it, always startles me to the degree to which I sit in closeness to the warm hearth.

I love the word “hearth” and the world it seems to gather in its utterance: A picture of home as warmth, comfort, and resting place. For me, winter is a time of welcome hibernation; an excuse to not be so busy; and a time to enjoy the creature comforts of familiarity. A soft sweater, cup of tea, blazing fire, and my dog curled up nearby create the equivalent contentment of a summer night on the town—maybe even better.

I know that I have safely made the transition from summer to winter (in my own subjective reality, there are really only two seasons) when I can appreciate all that winter has to offer. Summer is, admittedly, my favorite season and just the thought if it—or of a late winter visit to Miami—keeps my skin desperately clinging to its ever-fading tan and the glow of the sun held within it. Still, there is something about looking out my window into the quickly darkening sky through barren tree branches that gifts me with a capacity for a deeper appreciation of both summer and winter and the transitioning seasons between the two. Each winter I learn something about the impermanence of life and its corollary, letting-go.

It’s not an intellectual understanding, though. Rather, it’s something I feel in my bones and know intuitively. It’s the security that comes from the cyclical nature of change. I see the leafless trees and know that they will once again birth the life of foliage, sometime in the future. This knowing, in turn, creates an appreciation for where they are now: Naked and cold. In appreciating how things are in this moment, I accept change. And through the act of acknowledging change, I can be in gratitude for and with the present—which is not usually an easy task for me. I prefer to fight what is, always wanting something more, or different. I have “tried” to surrender, in the midst of such internal battles; I’ve tried hard, to no avail. For me, it is not nor has it ever been an act of will. The letting go, that is. It is more like a gift that is granted, perhaps by the power of Mother Nature. It may be her fierce authority that wakes me up to my own smallness. I realize that no matter how hard I try or how willful and stubborn I get, I can’t force the trees to grow back leaves any sooner than they just will, completely regardless of me. There is relief in this. And when I stop the fight my energy is freed up to appreciate the popping fire and the gorgeous power of the universe.