A Slow Start
Winter has come to let us all off the hook, but will we allow it?
Dear One,
Welcome to January…
2024.
Is it what you were expecting?
Place your hand on your heart for a second.
Let it rest there, and then take a breath.
Not a deep exhaustive forced one, just a regular one.
Sigh it out if you want.
Let your shoulders drop.
If you’re near a window look outside, if not just take in what’s around you.
What do you see?
My windows are blurry with rain, a silvery sun valiantly fighting its way through, making for a milder day than most though you wouldn’t know it — the wind is so strong it’s flinging birds off course in the distance, the bare trees are whipping violently, torn branches screaming against nearby panes of glass, it’s whispering something urgently though I can barely make out what. It’s growing dark already but it’s early. My dog is refusing to go out.
A healthy reminder.
I am the thrashing wind. I too am already battling a false sense of forward motion, thrust upon us every New Year as if January comes and we must immediately begin again.
If I thrash hard enough can I shake this off?
I look down at my dog as she glances forlornly between me and the relentless outdoor cold and wet. I know that deep down I also have zero desire to leave the house.
So why can I not take this as my cue to stay the course of this season? To ignore the pressures of our peers and our culture to resolve to do ‘better’ instead of simply allowing? To eat less when we really need more to keep warm? To get moving when we just want to curl up by a fireside and restore?
We have forgotten that Winter offers up its own kind of bounty - tidings of comfort and joy I believe someone once said - and let me tell you something else, we have earned it. We have worked so hard and endured so much and burnt bright (sometimes out) and this is the time we get to slow it all down.
I hear the wind picking up again.
Can I honour this time? Can I allow for my own season of Winter? Can we all allow ourselves to take a collective pause for a moment, to let nature to do its thing whilst we do ours? Why the desperate need to push and prove, accelerating out of the blocks with no warm-up?
It’s January 2nd as I write this and already I have had to shift my expectations — not in a huge way but enough to disrupt some casual plans. How about you?
Who knows, maybe you’re storming ahead with your goals, 40 mph gale warnings at your heels, your new set-up going great thus far, the electric light and man-made heat taking the edge off it all a little…
But humour me for a few more moments.
Because if you do slip up on a resolution, suddenly find you aren’t able to meet a reached for goal, if you’ve already broken your ‘new year, new you’ routine; know that nature is right there ready to catch you without judgement — just hot foot it to the nearest window and take a look:
Winter has come but it’s just the beginning. It may have been Winter yet but it is Winter still. Though the days marginally grow a little longer with each earthly rotation we’re not even edging on the deathly slow march towards February, which is when we’re most likely to have snow here in England. Cold and wet will become so much colder and wetter still, long before we have any hope of seeing life again in Spring.
A healthy reminder.
Place your hand on your heart for another second.
Let it rest there, and then take a breath.
Not a deep exhaustive forced one, just a regular one.
Sigh it out if you want.
Let your shoulders drop.
What if I told you that Winter is here to let us all off the hook? So that we might all curl up like fireside cats. Not just for a mad-rushed two weeks either, but a deliciously drawn out few months? Offering us all an opportunity for deep comfort and restoration. A time to properly reflect and reset.
How does that make you feel?
If it’s the soft easy warmth of relief, know that I am with you.
Slow it all down, the wind whispers imploringly, as more rain lashes out against the glass.
Tend to your garden by all means but a better gardener than me might ask you, ‘why sow seeds in frozen ground?’ A good one would tell us, to wait until Spring.
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