Deep cold, narrow days. Frost alive on all the trees as the mercury fails and shudders at the bottom of the thermometer. -9, -11, -12. The cold is alive and dynamic instead of passive and heavy. Going out and all the skin on your face lays tight and your eyes smart. How articulated all the planes feel as the cold primes and hums across them. And we? Head out into it. When we can tolerate (some of us better than others!)
We will sometimes bundle and arm ourselves and head into the trembling light. Getting to the top is no colder than being down low, only leaner and fiercer.
Sometimes this relentless cold and dark time makes me feel smothered. I am lucky to have been guided by serendipity to the deep thinking and light-oriented writings of May Sarton. From her 1973 Journal of a Solitude, she wonders about the nature of this closing-up as well...
"I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let all the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.....Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let is go."
-October 6th entry.
Such a mimicry, we could be so honored to get it even close to right. Those trees.
