Hi friends! The first snow of 2014 is on the ground, in the air, and perhaps on our minds. With the arrival of winter comes a whole new set of the challenges and opportunities. Here at Milkweed one of our goals is to help you fuel your own capacity to live and lead, even during the most frosty of times. Even though winter can trap us inside our toasty homes away from the rest of the world, winter does not have to be a similar trap in regards to our inner spirit. In fact, there is no better time than winter to grab some hot cocoa, sit in front of the fireplace, and to just reflect.
Take a moment to think about winter and what it means. Maybe you’re thinking about the snow or about that patch of ice you always seem to slip on every year. Or maybe you’re thinking about how barren the trees look, how they have been stripped of their colorful leaves, how everything seems to be lacking life. Winter has the tendency to make us feel as if we are one of those barren trees. The harshness of the season can threaten to take away our leaves, our energetic desire to live and to lead. Regardless of this apparent challenge, an opportunity is at our doorstep, one that only winter can provide.
Author, leader, and vocational expert Parker Palmer from his book Let Your Life Speak understands this gift to be “clarity.” For Palmer the cycle of the seasons can be understood as the cycle of human life. The harshness of winter can be seen as the harshness of some of the things in our lives that cause us to suffer. But, “Winter clears the landscape, however brutally, giving us the chance to see ourselves and each other more clearly, to see the very ground of our being,” says Palmer. If winter gives us the opportunity to see things more clearly, then we might as well make use of such a gift!
So grab that hot cocoa, find your warm spot in front of the fireplace, and embrace winter by practicing some simple reflection. Reflect on your state of wellness. Seek to clarify what it is you are lacking in your life, or what is it you need more or less of. Ask whether you are being the person you want to be, or better yet, whether you are fulfilling your life’s purpose. Throughout your reflection realize the deadened frost of winter is required for the life of spring. Through the process of clarification in which winter brings, we are able to make our hearts a little warmer, our spirits a little brighter, and the upcoming spring even more vibrant.
By Colin Reike