New Horizons
My viewpoint has changed. The place that I stand on this globe, the scenic landscape that stretches out before me, is unfamiliar. My body is learning the ancient wisdom of going within as winter encroaches and consumes everything that surrounds me. I am finding ways to honor my instinctual nature in this time of short lived yet precious warmth from the sun. The call for rest and self devotion is real.
I no longer see the safety of the ocean before me, but rather the overwhelming stature of the relentless mountains standing tall. They burry the sun quickly in the evening and stand just between me and the coastline I have for so long called home. I am out of my element in these mountainous treasures that exist here in this new world. Home to so many, but to me, a new challenge in finding alignment with the wild that has always been just out of reach. Although I live among the brick houses and their many smokey chimneys, the nightly stimulation of the fire trucks and ambulances flying past, and have most anything at my fingertips within this city, I feel closer to nature than ever before. The nature that is both within me and around me. The nature that pulls me in each time I see fresh snow falling from the sky. It forces me to enter the cold and become childlike in awe once again. Somehow there is nothing like tiny bursts of snow cascading around you to make you feel small. The wonder that is created in such a mundane icy matter, perfectly crystalized to suit each and every snowflake in its perfect uniqueness.
This pattern that leads us from vibrant summer into the quiet and reflective fall months, and yet again into the annual retreat we each take into our homes seeking warmth and comfort in winter, is the same pattern that brings us back to our deepest inner voice and knowing at this time. In warmer climates that neglect the revolving cycles of death and decay in winter, its easy to feel out of alignment with the ever changing processes occurring within us as the seasons turn over.
We are meant to have and honor seasons as well. We, being such a vibrant part of nature itself, are meant to rebuild our vast energy sources, our life source in the colder months.
As living, evolving creatures, there must be a time for both outward expansion and inner organization. It is the process that helps us move forward each year and to grow in our experiences and our truth as individuals.
This new landscape has inflicted permission to find the ability to slow my outward motion, and the gratitude that arises from allowing for such stillness in these days. My intention for this moment of inner reflection and solitude is to create from the deepest depths of me. The ones that are buried amongst all the activities of the sped up days of the rest of the year. To use this gift of winter, my first true winter in this life, as a place of fertile creativity. Growth and life is conceived in the depths of the dark soil, far before anything surfaces for us to see. And I see this as a perfect opportunity to grow something beautiful.
