The Wisdom of the Seasons

Winter, growing up in Michigan, always makes me think of being dormant. It was always bone chilling cold, dark, and when it snowed, everything was covered with a magical blanket of quiet. Looking back, that combination begs for rest. I wish that’s what it could have been. But it can now, if I let it.

Being raised in a culture where performance was essential for proving your worth, rest was seen as weak. Doing as much as you could, meeting everyone’s needs and keeping a good attitude without complaining was not only a measure of worth, but also a measure of the love earned. The strong pushed through…. everything.

Decades later, even though years of recovery have taught me better, I must consciously make effort to stop when I recognize signs that I’m abandoning myself. And those signs, if I don’t listen, tend to just grow louder until I do. They speak up as impatience, anger with people or systems that seem to make things harder, talking too much, doing all my tasks as if they are emergencies (even the fun ones), eating too much, or feeling too lethargic to move or get out. Sometimes these behaviors creep in slowly, and if I’m not paying attention, they seem to come out of nowhere.

Finding a balance means listening to the call to rest (without apologizing for it) and not waiting for my world to become so overwhelming I just check out. Putting aside the conditioning which tells me I need to be of service or useful to be of value or that busy equals significance, I see how the rhythm of winter is calling me to surrender. In nature there is no guilt for this, it is essential to the cycle of life.

One of the beautiful writers I frequently digest, Vanessa Crites, wrote, “When you honor your body’s call for rest- even when it’s inconvenient, even when people are disappointed, even when it means missing out- you’re practicing devotion. To winter’s wisdom. To what wants to emerge in the dark. To the truth that not everything grows in the light.”

Nature in its infinite wisdom shows us there’s no mistake that after the fall of shedding what no longer serves us, the winter arrives and asks us to rest, restore and honor the shadows. Soon spring will come, we must store up energy for the rebirth. Our conditioning can sometimes conflict with what is natural, what is needed, what is sacred. I’m learning  that my body has wisdom my mind will never have.