I wrote the majority of these thoughts over the Winter of 2001-2002, and I rediscovered them this Winter (2003-2004). It is essentially an observational and contemplative essay, based on my own perceptions of Nature. Although eastern Pennsylvania has not received any real blizzards this year (especially compared to those of 1994 and 1996) and December was relatively mild, nevertheless it feels like a long season. As I type up this essay and prepare it for posting, it is March 18th. Earlier this week it snowed a few inches and tomorrow we are expected to get four to eight additional inches. With the Vernal Equinox right around the corner, I am beginning to long for Spring, and so I am posting this essay in order to remind myself to appreciate this season because I know I will be longing for it during the hot and humid days of Summer.

    At the winter solstice
      The sun permeates the firmamant
        Of the mountain province.
             - Iida Dakotsu (Japanese 1885-1962)

It is also a time to learn to appreciate one's own structures: your physical body which supports you, your family and religious/cultural upbringing which makes you what you are, and the past - the path you have taken and the lessons you have learned. Winter asks us to confront these things in its chill, crisp light instead of merely reveling in the pleasurable effects of our decisions.

Winter also clears out old growth and that which is weak or no longer serves a meaningful purpose. The leaves have fallen, many creatures are in hibernation or have died due to the cold and/or lack of food. Resources for survival are diminished. Winter is not without hardship. To brave these woods, you must be prepared to deal with the cold, and if you do by chance get lost, it will be more difficult to survive than in warmer weather.

That primal connection, the looming acknowledgement of your own mortality, is so close at hand. You come to realize the inherent fragility of your own body as hail streaks across your face and your fingers are pierced with the cold. Even in our vehicles, the contemporary mobile fortresses which keep the outside world at bay, we realize we are still not immune to the factors in our environment. We glide in graceful circles on an unexpected patch of ice, and we are forced to come to terms with the fact that we cannot have complete control all of the time. We must yield to a certain degree in order to right ourselves; as in the parable of the willow and the oak, we must bend if we do not wish to break.

This is a good time to wander since the path will be free of foliage, and the lack of leaves allows the general lay of the land to be more apparent. The insects and arachnids that gather around warm bodies in the other seasons are no longer there. If there is snow on the ground, it is easy to track your own path just in case you lose your way and also offers an opportunity for futher exploration since you will have your tracks to lead you back the way you came. One can also find the tracks of of others more easily in the snow - animals, people. It gives you an opportunity to "walk in their footsteps," literally, and to a certain extent to see what they have seen and hear what they have heard.

Cold preserves. It has the effect of halting time, enabling learning to take place, yet it can also cause stagnation. Cold also crystallizes. It is the catalyst that causes a droplet of water to transform in precise, miniature grandeur into a snowflake. It teaches us to feel gratitude for those things which are evanescent, and to instill an understanding that beauty and vulnerability are interconnected. We may instinctively come to comprehend this as children when we seek to bring a snowflake indoors to admire it in a more comfortable climate.

Every season contains some paradox. After the passing of Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox, the nights get progressively longer, bleeding slowly like ink into our cherished daylight. Yet those nights seem more luminous without the layering of leaves to hinder the starlight. It is in the very midst of this cold time that the tide turns and the sun is reborn. In traditional Wiccan myth the God is born as the Child of Promise at the Winter Solstice. The night of His birth marks the longest night of the year, and still at the heart of this darkness we discover its turning point. After this the nights will begin to wane as the young God grows stronger, and after the long period where the cold and the ice has us virtually convinced that the Wheel has come to a sullen halt, we perceive its movement again:

It is at the next Sabbat, Imbolc, when renewed life again stirs in the Goddess, and She Herself undergoes a transformation from the Crone Lady of Winter to the young Maiden whose skin still glistens with frost. February is still a dark and forboding time, but there is an awakening deep inside the earth. It is a subtle shift cloaked by the landscape, but you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this change in the delicate petals of the Snowdrop.

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