Winterland?
The kingdoms of summer and winter stand strongly in contrast with each other, they are the children of order and chaos, they skirmish, tangle and wrestle for dominance as they rise and pass, performing a dance that takes a year to complete. Each has it own rules and customs that make sense in the internal logic of who's kingdom you find yourself within, and trying to impose your own wishes upon them will result in a poor outcome for you. It is you that have to adjust your behaviour, the world changes not according to your wishes but for it's own, you are just a passenger on this planet, it has it's own path and story that is playing out, what matters is how you change in response to this drama.
Winter is the king of order, it bring peace and stillness, there is no silence as beautiful as when snow is falling, it bring simplicity to a complicated world, the trees show their structure, the branches that trace the years of growth, proudily displaying it's resilence and solidness through the many cycles it has seen, the busyiness of leaves left behind. Life stops moving, what has not escapes by flight, chooses to huddle away, hibernating, finding pockets of warmth, they rely on squirreled away supplies or fat that has been built up in autumn. Everything becomes very simple, stay warm, eat, sleep, winter is the teacher of mimilism, it shows us to look within to what is really essential, we are taken back to the basics of what we need, what we truly want, which is a root question that when properly answered can give our life meaning. It is winter that provides the clarity by stripping away everything that distracts us during the summer, it concentrates the mind with gently suffering.
Summer was the time for being, to explore, adventure, to know the landscape of our environment, to experiment with new ideas, to create, build and cultivate ourselves into strong individuals who can survive the coming winter. Winter is the time that our dreams are fermented, that we soak up the ideas that we get to bring to the table in spring, in the summer we grow, develop, it is in winter that they are tested, when life is hard, that is when you know you have strong habit, that we are able maintain the standards that we have set ourselves, that our mental health routines are robust, that we understand how to care for ourselves no matter the circumstances.
It is winter that we find out what we are made of, how happy and health we really are in the tough time when it is so easy to be drawn in the comfort of bad habits, it when we are tempted to start having a donut with our morning coffee as we justify that we need the extra energy to cope with the cold, it might be true or not, it could be a desire disguised with logic. Winter is the destoryer of weak intention, that daily walk can be defeated just by a little snow and not walking can fast become your new habit losing you weeks or months of pleasant spring walks that now look too soaky for you to manage. It is tough, but whatever survives winter you get to keep for the rest of the year, that is the simplicity of winter in action, it strips away the unnecessary and leaves only the essential, it is a gift and a curse in that way, and which one it is depends on your point of view.
All season are full of this mixture of opportunity and problem, which are often the same quality in different clothing, what changes it's nature is the way you intrepert them, you are what is being tested not once but continiousily. You are the lens through which you see the world, the world is neutral content, you bring it to life, the world is always exactly how you see it, if you see it as uncaring it will be, if you see it as full of love it will be, it will always show you your fears, and feed your love. That is not to say that neutral means unchanging, the world is always changing and that change always contain discomfort and unease, however it is not personnel (there is not even really a self to take it personnel). The world happens and you happen, you unfold according to the range of choices available to you, given your personnel life circumstances, given character and the moment in time that you find yourself within, and you never get to stop making those choices, given doing nothing is itself a choice, an unskillful choice but a choice nonetheless.
It is in the depth of winter that we are forced to confront those choices that we have made during the year, it is when we are tested and we have to create new resolve, that is why it is so popular to make new years resolution, it not just the date or convention, it is nature driving our impluse to set new intentions. Of course, it also test those intentions immeditately, that is why we need to balance our intentions with reflections and gratitude on what we have already achievced in the past year, that is why we seek out our family, both for comfort in a difficult time but so that we have accountablity for what we have done, and who knows a little credit for having a good year.
However often we need more than their compassion, we want help to reflect upon what we could have done better, to process our mistakes, to feel their loving judgement so that we have the drive to try again, despite the overwhelming pressure that life piles on us. We are imperfect, it is good to have the company of other imperfect people, especially when we once had the illusion that parents should have been perfect for us when we were children, there is a comfort in knowing that others have failed just as much as we have, that is just nature of being people, we fail and then we try again. That is a real gift, one that really matters, as is gratitude, and there is no more basic gratitude than having an excess of our basic needs.
That is the role of our winter feasting, to have food at a time when nature does everything it possibly can to prevent us from eating, that is the crowning achievcement of human civilisation, that is the fulfilment of our ability to understand the passing of time, to know that winter is coming and make ourselves ready for it. For millions of years human simply slowly straved to death during winter, not everyone made it through, it was a time when the weak passed away, it is the result of ten thousand years of suffering and progress that has given you the feeling of being full on christmas day, it is their gift and greatest wish that you enjoy that feeling, so embrace it, though you do not have to mock them by making yourself ill, but love that feeling and remember what had to happen to make this moment happen, feel the gratitude for them.
Gratitude is always the greastest gift that we can give or recievce, either to ourselves or others, it is what helps us to feel our own heart (much neglected as it gives so much more than it recievces), it is always there for you, smoldiering, waiting for the fuel of your attention to fire up again. That heat is powerful, best shared with the world and always an internal delight, enabling you to light up in the company of others, to give more, to listen with real intention, to hear what is really being said and create bridges of connection between each other. Winter moves us to move towards each other, to seek their warmth and support through the darkest night, once we had the very real worry of wolves, that the fire protected us from, however the night never loses it's meanace, we have that inbuilt fear, the dark night of the soul is both metaphorical and real.
It is as the night grows to it's greatest length that boundaries between reality and the subconscious weaken, our imagination and inner worlds come closer to the real one, the dividing line less certain. Elves, spirits, things that bite in the night, are abound, we light the yule log to burn for twelve days to protect our homes, refuggue and place of safety, our minds need protection because they are so active and open. This is an opportunity to truly observe our minds in action, without the distraction of work and the world at large, it is the time to get lost in the flame of a candle or open fire, to slow down and let the mind play out it's dramas, the way it keeps on turning it's wheel to next subject of worry or contemplation, never resting, always moving, and you get to watch this stream of consciousness, and what is measured, can be changed, that is the promise that makes the effort of staying open to exactly what is happening.
It is a tiring endeavour, and whilst there is a benefit just in the effort of having solid attention on a single object, the real reward is the transformation in thinking that occurs when you venture down the path to insight into the reality of our underlying world and how we expericence it. Our childhood fantasy that we are living in a story with a hero that is at the centre of all the events that happen to us, is just that, a conveninenet lie that protects us and helps us grow into adults. To get to the next level of consciousness, we need to simply let our natural curiousiness take us the rest of the way, it is sad that so much of the circumstances of our lives, exam taking, achievcement focus, career building, object aquiring, status jealous, are masking distraction that prevent us from pursuing truthful living.
That is the living that occurs in the moment, never in the future or the past, the ability to be truly in the moment, to be fully aware of what is happening and follow that flow of experience to the unfolding of the three characteristics of reality, that everything changes, change always contains discomfort but that nothing is personal, reality just happens, you just happen. It might feel like you are making every choice, but freewill is a rare beast, it takes a lot of effort to see past the vastly complex process that is a human being. Most people are just riding the surface, and following the natural contours of their existence, it feels like free choice, and yet, given what has happened to you before this moment (including the genetic lottery of birth) there is at best only a limited range of option available to you at any single moment, and it is even rarer for any decision to be a marginal call, normally there is a clearly better option. It will not be the same for everyone, going for a walk would be a good choice for most, but for a minority it would be a bad choice, your circumstances matter, there are not objectively good choices, just the one that works for you.
If you are happy with the contours of your existence, there is no reason to go deeper, and I say this knowing that very few people are happy, regardless of how pretty those contours are, and that is because reality always contains discomfort, it is right there front and centre, it is in every moment and everywhere, it is a fundamental part of the human expericence and every attempt to put a plaster on it with stuff, travel and actitivities, just repeats the experiment, it is still there. The only way is to turn inwards, out there is just more stuff, the external world matters, you have to care for yourself and others, you have to make sure you are feed, warm and security, and doing so feels good if you have been deny these simple human needs, however once you have resilance and safety, the mind turns back to itself, you can not escape it. The distatifation of being hungry is just a very clear example of discomfort, but it discomfort all the way down and it is only by facing into that discomfort, that you get to be liberated from it.
Winter strips away our illusions just as it removes the distractions of summer, it simplifys our world, and leaves us with just ourselves, we can celebrate and feast with our friends and family as much as we want, put lights up, drag trees into our houses but in the end we have to accept that this is a time for simplicity. We love the simple pleasures, a warm duvet, strong coffee, a hike through snow, the harshness and softness contrasting to create heighten senses that can smell a roasting fire from ten miles out, and the greatest rewards go to those who are preparing to face into that simplicity, that are able to stay with it, and notice every part that makes up the most simple of thoughts. Like a fractual it turns out that reality gets more complex, the closer you look at it, and the deeper you go the more beautiful it gets, so do not survive winter, thrive in it, do nothing more than you have to do and then embraces the wonders of this winterland.
