Tag Archives: hibernation

 

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.

I went to the bookstore today, it has a Starbucks in it with a fireplace and I love to browse, maybe buy something or not and sit and have a coffee. I spent a good amount of time there before Christmas. Books are my favourite gift to give and I love to choose wisely and that means lots of looking and reading. I know that bookstores are probably bleeding red ink and have to diversify to stay afloat. The atmosphere had definitely changed. Christmas was gone, winter was gone and we had moved on to fitness, resolutions including a whole display on changing your life through you name it: mindfulness, meditation, yoga,  the slow movement, etc etc.,  oh, and don’t forget your Fitbit.

Pink was the colour, spring and valentines day. Healthy eating and cleanses. The mindfulness colouring books were all flowery now, winter animals were gone.

I am still stuck on sleeping in, warm beds with flannel sheets, fireplaces and good stews with lots of root vegetables. Hell there is 3 feet of snow outside.

Why does it have to be shunted off so quickly. Why can’t we just relax?  This is our time for reflection, our time to  hibernate, renew.

We are all so hep to start a new year, a new regime, find a new us. Don’t we know that:

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

The Winter of Listening
by David Whyte

No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.

All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.

Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.