Here in Australia, today marks the first day of winter.
In many parts of Australia winter is nothing like the winters of the northern hemisphere. We hardly have snow, and ice skating is something that happens in ice skating rinks!
But as the days become shorter and colder and wetter, it’s easy to find ourselves longing for warmer days and sunnier skies.
We can choose to resist the season, to resent the shorter days and the cold, and the way that it forces us indoors more. We can count the days until the weather warms and curse the cold and the rain.
Yet resisting the challenges of winter means that we are missing out on the gifts that it brings.
We don’t have to pretend that it’s our favourite season, but we can find many blessings in winter. Focusing on the blessings can make it less of a challenge to endure and more of an opportunity.
The longer nights give us an time to enjoy reading and exploring other worlds and other people’s life stories. Time to lose ourselves in movies and TV programs – eg. the recent series of Alone set in the wilderness of Tasmania, which showed the participants enduring rain every day while sleeping under a shelter made of tarpaulin and wondering where the next meal would come from!
It could be an opportunity to finish off those tasks that you never get around to but would love to tick off – sorting photographs, working on a family history, creating art or some other craft that you mean to pursue but don’t get around to in the busyness of other times.
Winter can be a great time for rest and rejuvenation. It can also be about time for stillness and reflection. It can be an opportunity to consider what you are bringing into your life that adds to feelings of being rushed or overwhelmed.
Time to contemplate what you are doing that you feel compelled to do, and what you may be able to let go of in order to enjoy more of those moments of stillness throughout the year.
Pursuing outdoor activities even in the cold can give us much more than the health benefits. Choosing to get out and do things even when it’s cold and wet and grey can give us the fuel to pursue other challenges, to recognise that we have the capacity to rise above circumstances to create what we want for ourselves.
And finding beauty in nature when it’s cold and grey reminds us to find the beauty in our lives when it seems everything is chaotic and scattered.
The tree that blooms in the depths of winter can remind us that in the darkest times there is always something to celebrate – if we choose to see it.
Winter is a great metaphor for outside circumstances in our lives. We can see them as forces which overwhelm us and rob us of the opportunity to do what we want. Or we can use the power we have to choose how we will respond, and create what we love in all seasons.