Seasons of Me!

"A glimpse into the life of a birder, beach comber, self taught naturalist, an antique dealer, and junker! There are many seasons that happen here!"

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Making Amends With Winter




I am a true lover of summer...of the bright sunshine, the warmth, the glow, the long days, the color and the aroma, and all of the song...birds, insects and what have you! The droning of the annual cicadas...It is summer! The love of summer is a love that I have always had and there is little doubt that this love won't depart til I depart this earth. And then I know that I will BECOME one of summer. Guiltily, I do not share this same passion with winter - even though I was a winter baby. I am just not fond of cold, damp, windy, and blustery days...there are no colors and life seems monotonous in a huge way. There seems to be lots of void. As a nature lover I know this could be no further from the truth...I feel guilty at times for not being as passionate with the winter as I am with the summer. Winter IS a part of nature...part of that revolving circle of life. This winter has found me shivering more and grumbling more about the cold and dreariness of the season. I have been finding myself slipping further and further away from my realm of nature. I have been hiding from it--trying to burrow in warmth and by doing this I have been missing out on natures wonderful realities that are right before me.

And then one day --a very cold day I will add--a man came to my check-out counter in the store with his purchases. One of the items he laid in front of me was a book by Thoreau, whom I am very familiar with...At that moment he decided not to purchase it. Left at the counter after he left I started perusing it. As I flipped through the pages a chapter leaped out at me. It was titled A WINTER WALK. The title--it spoke to me, it tugged at me. The book went home with me that night as I decided to read that chapter to try to get back in touch with the true heart of things--regain my appreciation- make amends and find peace with winter. As I read I felt my heart warming. It was leaping and I felt distant memories re-kindling in my mind like the stirring of glowing embers returns to flames. Thoreau spoke of some of the wonders that I once knew, but somewhere in the jumble of human life they just got mis-placed. Yes--those winter starry skies--they are of the prettiest of starry skies. So clear, so crisp, and within reach--or so they seem. It has been a long time since our eyes met, however. The silence of a winter night (or morning) is so pure. Just the mere thought of that purity comforts me and helps me to feel the peace of winter. By the time I reached the end of that chapter I felt a connection akin to a realm that is only in our reach if we let ourselves be reachable...

I lost my way but was re-directed by a stranger who was directed by some other realm..was he just a passage way or did he find a path he was seeking also? Was it faith or irony?

The next day as I was driving to work I noticed the sun glistening over the snow covered fields. The trees spoke in sharp contrast to their surroundings. Suddenly my heart began to swell and the sun began to shine (if only mentally). My eyes suddenly opened to a scene of peace and pure sereneness...and I SEEN. It was a landscape at rest- you could actually see its restfulness and deep-sigh breathing--and it was breath taking. It was calming. It was soft...I grinned, I sighed, I made my peace with winter...