Life in the Dark

The weather is changing here in Boston. There is a slight nip in the morning air and sometimes I’m sure it actually smells different. I used to hate the change because it heralded a season of cold and darkness. I missed the beauty of it – how the leaves know what to do, how the harvest is complete and ready for fulfillment. It wasn’t until I fell in love (with a person) in autumn that I began to see the potential. This a little ironic if you know me and my love of metaphor, but it is the truth nonetheless.

My new appreciation of winter is not because after it comes the spring blah, blah, blah. Instead, I am learning to see the beauty inherent in the season itself.

I used to think of winter as a “pause” between “real” seasons when “things happen.” This could not be farther from the truth. Rather, in the winter, the earth restores. Indeed, without the winter the other three seasons would not exist. This is not to say that life does not occur in the winter. What happens below the surface may be of more importance than what happens above. All of nature folds in on itself and focuses inward.

Imagine if we saw our cold and dark places not as something to fear or avoid or “push through” because of what we “get” in the afterwards but as a thing of beauty and value because it is just as much as part of us as anything else. Imagine if, not only that, we let ourselves sink into it. What might we find if we allowed ourselves to fold inward? To sit in the cold and in the dark? What might we be able to restore?

The aches and pains of winter will remain what they are. All of us in New England will enjoy complaining about it and comparing snowfalls and heating bills to see who wins in the woe-is-me contest.

But in the winters of our souls, how will we learn to abide?

My first step is accepting Autumn for everything it is and everything it brings. So yes, here’s to fall leaves and firepits, pumpkin spice and apple orchards, sweaters and cute boots. Mostly, here’s to not fighting what comes next. Here’s to the huddling of winter and the restoration potential that comes with exploring ones own depths.