seasons of life

More About the Season of Winter in Your Life

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When winter knocks on the door and you are snowed in, you can’t leave the house, can’t escape yourself. All human movement in the white world ceases for a time as the wind roars, snow swirls and drifts pile up against all obstacles.

Here you are in the house, cozy and warm, yet there remain many long weeks until the spring thaw comes. You will endure the cold, the wind. You will survive this harsh and bleak time of year when life seems to have abandoned the world.

Winter strips bare the bones of Mother Earth, lays the reality of the frozen world before you – the tree wraiths with their black branches dancing in the gusting wind that cuts like a knife.

Winter trees

Many compare winter to death. But, dear ones, life waits deep in the roots of the sleeping trees and grasses, Deep in the soil below the frost zone, beneath the blinding drifts of snow. Life bides her time, resting and waiting for the warm mild days to return, the bright spring sun that draws all life upward to his life giving light.

Spring tree

When winter overtakes your being, find time to rest and go inward. Connect with the spark of existence that is deep within your being and know that life will return once again when the season turns.

Ice and Water

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Dear beloved, do you exist in the manner of frozen ice, living in a perpetual winter, or do you live and breathe and move like flowing water? Have you known both ways of being?

All who walk this earth find themselves in the season of life called winter from time to time, a winter in the mind, in the emotions, a frozen heart, perhaps a time of grief.

GCW in snow

If you are stuck in the cold, you will find a way to cycle through the season of winter in your life and move on to the time of thaw and warming. This feels like spring with new life unfolding everywhere, giving way to the bank full flow in streams and rivers and the green leaves of summer.

When you are living in the seasons of spring and summer within your heart, your life flows effortlessly downstream finding the path of least resistance, moving forward with grace, moving toward the ocean with ease.

In summer, your life is like a river, refreshing all who drink of it, sustaining life along its course. The river of your life moves through the landscape, flowing easily around obstacles, even cutting through layers of stone over the course of centuries, to reach the goal.

Sunlit ripples, shallow creek

Then once again you may experience the biting winds and chilly air of autumn and into the frozen time of winter. All forward movement, all flow ceases when winter arrives, life goes underground and water freezes. Everything is stuck in place, frozen in time and space. As you have been here before, you know it is a temporary state. Do not lose heart, dear ones.

With time, patience, self awareness and self love, you can thaw the frozen and stuck places in your heart. Reach out for help if you need it. Your life can once again flow like water in midsummer.

Where there is forward movement and flow, there is life.

Like a tree

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Like a tree you can send down your roots and draw energy and nourishment from the earth, trusting in your ability to feed your body, live in the light, and anchor your spirit.

Like a tree, you can grow toward the light, straight and true, with no deviation to the left or right, trusting in the life-giving light of your true purpose to guide you and inform your growth.

Like a tree, you can reach out toward the heavens, connecting with all that is, trusting that you are one with all things, trusting that your roots will hold you.

Like a tree, you can send out new growth, trusting in the process of life to bring you energy, creativity, and soaking in the sustenance of light that is your birthright.

Like a tree, you can develop your seeds for the future and scatter them when they’re ready. Trust that these seeds of love, kindness, connection, hope, seeds of possibility and creativity and ongoing life will take root and grow where they are most needed.

Maple seeds

Like a tree, you can experience seasons of rest, seasons of regeneration and growth, seasons of letting go, trusting in the great rhythms of nature, trusting you are where you need to be.

You are more like a tree than you can imagine!

Cycles rhythms and seasons

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I sleep in the dark winter months after letting go of my cloak of golden autumn leaves, waking as my sap rises in spring and my buds unroll to soak in the sunlight…. It is my yearly cycle of life, death and life again. This is who I am! I am at peace.

Observe the age-old cycles of the moon, from full brilliant light to complete darkness, then back gradually to full light again. Each phase of the moon is necessary to the next, an integral part of the whole pattern.

She teaches patience, timing, renewal, shining brightly, allowing herself to rest in darkness, then rising and shining again.

Almost full moon

Do you as a woman resist the time of blood each month, call it a curse? Do you fear the change of life, fear that you will be finished, washed up, that you will be invisible, a dried up husk?

Do you as a man fear the time of life when your physical strength diminishes, when you slow down?

We are all creatures of Earth’s rhythms and cosmic cycles, each species with its own patterns and timing. You too have your seasons of growth, death of the old, rebirth, and regeneration.

Your ever present breath, like waves on a beach; your constant heartbeat, your rhythmic footsteps; your patterns of waking and sleeping accompany you all your days and nights on this earth.

Let your rhythms soothe you, let the breath and heartbeat carry you to sleep at night. Let them calm you when you are anxious.

Let your footfalls and the easy swing of your arms grace your day as you move about your business. Can you slow down and pay attention to these subtle movements within you?

Dear one, this season you find yourself in is your reality now! You are precious as you are! You are as you are meant to be!

When you know this, you will learn to live in harmony with the cycles and seasons of your life, large and small.

Have you been touched by frost?

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Late autumn frosts come with lace edged beauty, cruelly cutting down grasses and wildflowers, insects, tender life forms. But frost cannot destroy those living perennial roots deep underground that sleep in their dark bed of soil.

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Frosty wildflower leaves

If you have lived more than a few decades on this planet, you have known the icy fingers of frost. You have experienced the tender green shoots of life frozen by loss, hurt, trauma, betrayal…

When you fear all is lost after a freeze, life springs again from your roots, sending green shoots and leaves toward the light.  New life and growth and inspiration gives you new energy, new hope and courage to reclaim your power.

If your heart still beats in your chest, your roots can gather strength and you will live fully once again.

Dear one, you must have patience and allow the season of winter its full due. Take heart. Winter is a season of life, a part of each soul’s journey no matter where you live.

If you’ve been touched by frost, let yourself rest, conserve energy, let your roots gather nourishment and strength . Come spring you will feel and know the new growth within you, unfolding, reaching toward the light, inspiring you to live fully!

Patient like a tree

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Can you be patient like a tree?

Can you stand steadfast when the storms rage? Can you set forth leaves blossoms and fruit when the season is right?

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Grandmother Cottonwood, dormant

Can you let go of the old, the superfluous, last year’s leaves when they no longer feed your heart and soul? Can you rest and sleep and pull your attention inward during the long winter, gathering strength for the growth to come?

Can you feel the magnetic pull of mother earth in your roots, allowing them to be pulled into the soil and subsoil so you will be anchored deeply to your home? No matter how high and wide your reach, your deep roots will keep you secure through all seasons and all weather.

Can you allow your branches and leaves to reach and turn to the sun, to soak up and absorb the life giving light and warmth? These precious gifts are freely given to you!  They are your birthright!

When you stand tall and steadfast, when you live according to your life’s rhythms, you bless this earth with your presence; you know you belong here, a vital element in life’s tapestry. You will endure!