Winter

A lovely book called The Circle of Life by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr includes this paragraph in its introduction: "The seasons invite us to honor the earth out of which new life germinates, sprouts, develops, blooms, blossoms, and grows. Listen to Earth's song of the seasons passing through her sacred body. Listen intently to these seasons for they reveal our story of unfolding growth as well. They are reflective of changes in our life. In nature's pages we can read of our own evolving passages from death to life. They repeat themselves over and over as we become more true, more whole, more free with each seasonal turning."

This beautiful book has helped me to realize that tuning into the seasons will connect me more deeply to my own cycles of dying to the old/being reborn to the new, resting/growing, reflecting/doing or creating/destroying. Realizing that each new season holds it own challenges yet its own beauties has helped me to be more patient with the cycles that constantly wax and wane in my own life.


Today is the first day of winter, December 21. As I do at the beginning of each new season, today I reflect on winter. The first thing that came to me as I reflected were childhood winter memories. In most of my memories, I was totally oblivious to the hardships of winter. . . I was only focused on the adventures of trekking through deep snow, ice-skating with friends late into the long winter evenings, sledding down to the car on the mornings after my dad was unable to get all the way up the hill to our mountain home and snow days spent with my grandmother. Then with further reflection, I realized that in my early adult years, I lost that sense of wonder with winter and began to dislike it. . . the cold was too cold, the snow too heavy to shovel, the snow-covered roads too difficult to maneuver upon, the days too short, dark and bleak.


We all have spiritual winters in our lives. . . times when cold doubts and/or fears seem to blanket us and send us deep inside ourselves in search of our connections to Source. We miss the rich, full seasons of growth and the bountiful days of harvest. . .seasons of winter can be difficult to maneuver our way through. But just as in my perceptions of winter as a child, spiritual winters can also be times of adventure and beauty. Just as the earth needs winter as a time to rest and replenish to get ready for another big growth spurt in the spring, so the human spirit needs times of stillness, solitude and going deep within.


Today, as we enter the season of winter, I invite you to dwell, not on the harshness, the cold or the difficulties of winter. Instead, I invite you to see the long dark evenings as invitations to be still; to go within and search deep within yourself for forgotten or never explored aspects of your soul. Take this time to reconnect with your Source of wisdom and strength so that you will be refreshed and ready for a new explosion of growth when the season of spring comes once more. See this time of digging out from under old fears and doubts as getting ready for rebirth and new life in the spring.

Balance

When I was in college, a very long time ago, I was in total conflict with my feminine side. I had experienced sexual trauma at a very young age, had numerous father issues that had convinced me that I would have been more loved and accepted if I had been born a male and had consequently lived most of my childhood as a tomboy. Then at the age of seventeen, I met whom I "knew" was the masculine side of my soul and totally fell in love. . . only to have him break up with me a few weeks into my freshman year of college in order to go back to his previous girlfriend. The end result was me trying to navigate my way through college and major life decisions lost in a wounded soul. . . in conflict with what I viewed my "vulnerable" feminine side and over-developing my masculine side.

Throughout my freshman year and into my sophomore year, I rebelled against wearing anything feminine or soft or doing anything special with my hair. I developed friendships with males but overall shied away from even second dates with anyone. About half-way through the fall semester of my sophomore year, a Sadie Hawkins party was announced - it was the once a year chance for the young women on campus to be in charge of finding and inviting dates to attend the gala event. I am not sure what aspect of this party piqued the interest of my holed-up and wounded feminine side, but suddenly I became bold. I dialed the number of the best looking guy on campus and asked him to be my date. When he accepted, I suddenly found myself shopping for dresses with ruffles and lace, lovely shades of make-up and shoes with heels. I even found someone in the dorm to fix my hair up on top of my head with soft curls falling around my face. On the night of the party, as I descended the staircase of the dormitory to meet my date, I felt a bit strange and out of place within the femininity of the clothes and hairdo. . . yet in some way that I did not understand - deeply powerful.

The young man that accompanied me that evening, did not turn out to be the love that I had been searching for yet the sense of power behind my femininity that I experienced that night was the beginning of a journey. Our male-dominated society and our even more male-dominated churches have wounded the feminine side in us all - whether we live in female or male bodies. We have been lead to believe that the feminine aspect is weak and vulnerable therefore in order to feel capable and to have a sense of personal power we shame this part of ourselves and overdevelop the masculine side only to grow more and more out of balance.

Real power lies in the perfect balance of our feminine and masculine sides. The feminine side is like the moon - reflective, receptive. . . a soft light in the vastness of all that is. The power in this aspect of who we are is the ability to receive and reflect upon vast amounts of intuitive "knowing" that tunes us into people and situations at a deep level. The masculine side is like the sun - projecting, radiating, penetrating. . . a powerful light. The power in this side is more obvious but penetrating just for the sake of penetrating can be destructive - like war. The true power is the balance between the two. First, letting the feminine side receive and reflect upon the true nature of the situation, the needs of all involved, what would serve the highest good of all that are involved then allowing the masculine side to kick in and radiate into the situation what is needed whether it is love, instruction, discipline, or healing. It is very much like breathing in and breathing out. The feminine side breaths in the situation, reflects on it and "knows" what is needed. The masculine side breaths out whatever the situation needs projected into it.

I believe that this perfect balance of feminine and masculine was seen in human/Divine form in the life of Jesus. He was able to answer the real question when the person didn't even know how to voice the real question.

What would our world look like if we all, men and women alike, stopped trying to over-develop our masculine side in order to have a sense of power and instead strive to find true power in the perfect balance of the feminine and masculine aspects that exist in us all. There would be no war, no destructive anger, no climbing over others to get to the top of the heap. We would honor all life on this planet and strive to serve the highest good of all life forms.