Breathing Wwwwwwinter

As the days become colder and the nights become longer, I keep my eyes open for piles of unused wood lying on the side of the road. Having a pot belly stuffed with hard wood found the year before and dried over the summer brings me so much joy.

Once a year, however, we would drive to the Blue Mountains or down south to Bowral and stay at cosy hotel-motels where there was always a roaring fire crackling in the communal lounge. I loved the smell of burning wood and the feel of the heat ricocheting of the black, red and orange coals turning my cheeks to strawberry red. I loved drinking hot chocolate at the Paragon in Katoomba and eating a hearty breakfast at The Wolfson’s before heading out in the freezing cold with my sister, both of us holding hands with our mother who would briskly walk into the hot steam of her breath singing old war songs such as, ” “Pack up your troubles,” or “I had a good job, for fifty bob and I left, left, left , right left.”

Winter is a time of hibernation. Buried, concealed and cloaked by the cold wind, the frost on green lawns, the occasional ice and snow, this is the time of deep growth. Minuscule, infinitesimal movements barely flutter beneath the ground, and yet inside the heart of the earth and the soul or our being gentle growth and deep healing is taking place. This is the gift of winter.

This is a time when many of us choose to withdraw and rest before the first breeze of warm air teases open tightly coiled buds hanging precariously on bare wintry branches.In human terms some of us are experiencing emotional challenges that are often best handled through introversion.

When we go within we can see and hear our own wisdom beyond the beliefs and opinions of others. How often do we miss our own in-sight by trying to gather evidence against a so called wrong doer? How often do we lose sight of another’s perception by attaching passionately to our own?

How easily we can be manipulated into believing our own stories. How easily we can become polarised at this time. Liberal, labour, male, female, misogyny, militant feminism, sexual abuse, violence, should, must, have to, she should have, and he should never have, and so on and so on. How can we rise up above our own righteousness and see the other side?This is the time when some of us need to say, I love you, and this is no longer working for me.This is the time when some of us need to let go of the old ways that no longer nourish and reclaim our own truth with gentle loving hands.This is the time when we look around and hear the call to be of service in a quiet, secret, anonymous ways. In the dark we can do good without drawing attention to ourselves.

A baby has been growing in the darkness of my daughters womb for almost 37 weeks. When the time is right it will emerge into the light of this wondrous world and stretch its tiny muscles into the heaviness of air for the first time. No more floating inside the universe called mother.