Endings and Beginnings

I am one of those persons who finds deep peace and promise in the time of winter.  The winter solstice is, for me, a time of going deep and becoming quiet.  Other than the frequent insanity of the holiday season, the beginning of winter is a time to release all that has gone before and to await the sunshine of new beginnings.  It is a time of intense, stark beauty with the bared branches and stripping away of the softness of flowers and leaves.

Several years ago I lived for one beautiful year on a mountain in a small, old, drafty cabin.  I moved there following the end of a relationship of several years and the end of a job I had enjoyed due to the sale of the business to a competitor.  It was October when I found and moved into the cabin.  By the time of the solstice and winter's arrival, I was settled into the silence of quiet, solitary nights away from traffic, noise, streetlights and stores.  It was then I began to appreciate the warmth next to a fireplace while the snow fell outside my door.  It was the time going within and of releasing old pain and conflicts. 

Until that winter of occasionally awaking to no heat in the cabin (thank everything for an electric mattress pad on my little bed) and a cold nose, I probably had not experienced the time to discover how beautiful winter is.  Most of us see snow, ice, slush, mud and cold as enemies enroaching upon our comfort and convenience.  Somewhere in the stillness of that winter I failed to notice the inconveniences and focused almost completely on the time to be still and to be at peace.  There were many days of not being foolish enough to try to drive on winding, steep mountain roads, of wandering the mountain village lanes now and then, of wrapping in a quilt and just thinking beside the fire.  Perhaps the beauty I experienced was more the stillness of my spirit where I examined the bare bones of who I was, much as we can examine the shape and personality of a tree once its leaves have fallen.

So we have come to another winter, another time of shedding the leaves and petals of our lives that have served their purpose and no longer are needed, of going within, of silence in our spirits as we allow our lives to begin anew.  The new beginning we can experience is, as yet, only the embryonic promise, covered by snow and born in the dimness of short winter days.  But a new beginning it certainly can become.