On the morning after a snowstorm, the world is blanketed in a state of quiet unknown at almost any other time of the year. Sometimes there is wind – brutal and cutting – but when there’s not, the day can dawn in almost complete silence. On a morning like that, I will pause before beginning the routine, and look out at the world transformed by snow. There are certain scenes of beauty that can only be matched by the power of stillness and silence.
When you are homebound by snow, when the world keeps you quiet and subdued, there is the space to embrace whatever healing still needs to happen. Winter, for all its seeming cruelty, will offer many of these moments. In the past, I would sulk and mourn such days, as if I had something more important to do, somewhere better to be. Maybe that’s a passing fancy of youth. Maybe it was more pointedly a fault of my own.
This winter, after a few winters of practice, I have learned to slow down, to appreciate the way winter rolls, the way it makes for a hospitable environment for growth in the most unlikely of ways. Many people think of winter as the season of slumber, while forgetting that sleep is the often the best way to recover and recuperate from injury and ailment. Healing comes from such sleep, and from slowing down and facing what hurts.
Facing it, sitting with it, holding it, and, when it’s ready to depart, letting it go.
