Nature has no position. The gray, cool wind, the blue, and scented trees~
none call you by name,
nor does Nature know of your wrong-doings.
The crumbling dirt knows nothing of your successes.
The opening blooms nothing of your failures, your pain, your grief.
Neither does the storm that breaks black thunder know of your titles, your possessions or your goodness.
Who you are. In the arms of the cold waves, and endless grasslands, of tumbling bee and winding vine
and rushing river~
Our mistakes fall loose like distant dancers.
Our beliefs and dreams swirl loose, to dust.
A crow’s long cawing, on the wind.
We are free.
Rachel Alana
Out my window Quin lounges on the deck sofa. Every so often her ears flick, her head may sway, but otherwise she is oblivious to the chill descending on the wind.
Winter in Kentucky has been anything but predictable. I am here in my sixth year, still startled by how cold it can get. By how much snow can fall; and can’t.
Each year holds its own surprise.
Winter for me has lent itself nicely to slowing down. It’s intention is this, I think. But humans are programmed to run at full-tilt 24/7, so we miss this fact. Winter roads were never meant to be navigated. Story seas to never be crossed. We are designed in the natural scheme of things to pull in, to call things close to home, to close the doors, shutter the windows, and stay inside.
Not just inside the walls and doors, but inside ourselves as well.
I have in years prior descended into anxiety in the winter months. Call it seasonal depression or winter doldrums; it amounts to the same each time; a loss of a sense of accomplishment which manages to shake my sense of worth and purpose. If I were not doing and accomplishing, what was I here for, after all?
All that ends when you see winter for what it’s meant to be; a quieting, and what we are meant for it in; to rest inside and regather our nourishment and strength; to realign and remember the reasons for going out and being busy in the warmer months, and the purpose behind the busy-ness.
With these identified truths in my foreground I am firmly into this winter; three months with a few to go, Kentucky’s fluctuating temperatures and unpredictable patterns aside, I feel emboldened to face them with new found understanding and courage. Inside is a lovely place. It holds my paints, my brushes, my passions when I give them space to alight. It holds a warm blanket, a good book, tea, and baking. So many things rise and manifest in the months that in the past looked like loss and degradation; no more of that view. I see now, renewal and inspiration rising from the snow covered fog melting off the deck. Nature has its rhythm and I am today as ever, so much of this nature.
We are made for this.
In love.
trish