Yes, We Need Winter!

OK I have been hearing it all winter – it is cold, it is snowy, it is……….. I know I have heard it before and I am sorry I do think some people bitch about winter because it is fashionable. Society programs us to moan when it is cold outside (mostly it is from annoying television weather people who chant, “When is spring coming?” Spring is perky and they are nothing but perky!) Seriously, we are a society constantly on the move, constantly distracted, always looking to do something – anything. Winter is not a time for that.

We all have our favorite season and mine is winter but I don’t walk around in a shroud when it is summer time! I hate the heat and intense Sun but I plant my garden and participate in season. I still know that summer brings many wonderful elements with it! We need to participate in all of the seasons of the year.

So now, we are in winter. Yes, a cold and snowy winter but there let us not look at the value it brings. On a very basic level, we need winter snow to water our lawns and gardens in summer. When we have cold winters, we have few disease carrying insects to torment us in the summer.  

On a spiritual level, winter is, of course, a time of hibernation. We should NOT be racing around before the Christmas holidays shopping like crazy people but using this dark time to embrace rest and inner study!  In winter, nature rests and that is what we should do as well. Rest, reflect, and build our reserves of energy for the rebirth of spring.

Nature is relentlessly cyclical – rest and restoration in the winter, sowing in spring, ripening and growth in summer and harvest in the fall. When we do not live in the alignment with that cycle, we disconnect with the energy of the universe.

You don’t have to love winter but take a minute please to honor its place in the cycle of life – the unending cycle of the universe. I went out this morning and remembered the words “When the valley is hushed and white with snow.” There is a reason it is “hushed” – Nature is using this time to rejuvenate and plan for the bursting of spring. We should be doing the same.