Winter

Since my last post about my internal and familial stuggle I have noticed a significant shift within.

After I posted, things detriorated further, painfully so. Something inside me began to shut down. I didn't know what to do with this new thing. Where had my fight gone to? Why was I sensing this new stillness? And how was I to answer the demand to continue activity when my heart so clearly was readying the burrow for winter.

I felt adrift with no words to even name what was happening. Then Jan blogged this poem.

The seed is in the ground.
Now may we rest in hope
While darkness does its work.
~~ Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir

And then it became much more clear. Winter was here.

Now in my physical life I greatly dislike winter. The length and depth of coldness wear me down. But this internal winter feels like a gift. I know God's gentle leading is here. He is bringing on this season and asking me to acknowledge it's reality and to begin acting accordingly. My heart and mind have been filled with the sweetest images of winter. Warm, fur lined rabbit burrows. Thick, white blankets of snow. Soft smoke curling up from the cottage chimney. Bears with thick piles of fat curling up for the winter. Cozied up families shifting their activities away from the long, busy, harvest to a new time of hearth-side talks and early bedtimes.

In spring we tilled and planted - I began to wonder about the quality of the soil and seeds. In summer we tended and pulled weeds and watered - I began to see more clearly what was growing. In the fall we harvested - I knew a bitter harvest and felt the dying within me as frost came on. But now fall is past. Winter is here. And this winter is full of quiet, stillness, peace. And hope. This is a time of rest. A time of reduced, close-to-home living. This baby is coming soon (we have four weeks left). I feel God's arms coming around us like a big mother bear's. We are all wrapped up in a ball. I feel loved.

Yet, I am mindful of you. You, my beloved blogland commune-ity. You, my spiritual direction family. You, my friends. You are dear to me. You are important to this time. You may be experiencing your own season of winter.

Jan says, "Spring will come and with it the newness of life. Let us not grow weary in our waiting but find ways to nurture what is growing in secret." Sweet, wise Jan, thank you! And thank you blog friends - you help to nurture what is growing in secret.