Wintering

It is 4:15 pm and the sun is already setting on this shortest day of the year. I just came in from a walk in the snowy forest and soaked in the beauty of the pinking sky against the bright snow. I was listening to a podcast about creativity and wonder and joy and choosing to participate in those things simply because. It was very grounding to me in what has felt like a hectic all-things-Christmas focussed month. My mind and heart have been slow to come off the productivity/ busyness train of the last few years with moving, completing grad school and exploring a new city. I think I have transferred all that energy and movement to Christmas this year. On Sunday night, my mind was busy at 3:00 am with “present” worries and random tasks so I went downstairs to make a cup of tea and saw that I hadn’t lit the fourth advent candle that day. Sheesh, how could I forget advent? I paused, lit the candle, and said “thanks Jesus for being with me in all of this.“ That was the extent of my advent contemplation.

For some reason though, the winter solstice has caught my attention. This morning as I was opening my journal, my eyes fell on the word “Wintering” from my retreat last month. The focus of this retreat was to acknowledge that God reveals hidden things in the darkness and that “essential generative work” happens in the depths.

“Wintering” is about welcoming Mystery.

My human response is both resistance to and a desire for “wintering.” My resistance comes from fear of what might be revealed in the dark, in the quiet, in the unknown, yet my desire comes from a longing to get quiet, to go deep, to be still. It is a mystery and a wonder what happens in these dark places… wombs, tombs, seeds in the earth. There is no doubt that they are always places of significant transformation.

For me, it’s easy to get caught up in all that sparkles and shines, and there is plenty of it around in this season. In some ways I feel bad for missing the “reason for the season,” (though can a person really “fail” at advent when the whole point is that Christ embraced our human-ness?). Mostly I am beginning to notice this desire in me to once again explore the mystery of “wintering.” I wonder what hidden things God might reveal in this season of darkness, what might become transformative?

Tonight I will light a few more candles and say once again “thanks Jesus for being with me in all of this.”