Entry 7 : Learning to Love Winter…Again
By Holly Madden
Do you remember the feeling of waking up to snow when you were a child? The way your bare feet felt on the cold floor as you ran to the window. The way the window glass was so cold that as you breathed, your own exhale fogged up the interior pane. The way the snowflakes looked like tiny worlds of wonder just waiting to be discovered. You could barely wait to feel the crunch of snow under your feet and cover the blanket of glistening snow with your footprints. Growing up detaches us from the magic and the wonder as we often grow into a self that feels the cold down to our bones instead of naming the wind and dancing with it. We see snow accumulating and we think of the windshield that will need to be scraped or the driveway that will need to be shoveled. Yes…our world does not honor winter in the ways our bodies crave, in the ways our bodies need. We were supposed to move slower in winter, sleep longer, and enter a social state of semi-hibernation. I love waking up early, but lately, early feels too early. I remind myself, gently, that it’s the shorter days and the cooler temperatures reminding my body, “we need this rest.” But alas, my current 8-330 job does not shift with the season and so reluctantly, i get up. It’s okay to grieve a society that does not flow with the cycles of mother earth.
But what if our grief looked less like grief over the loss of daylight and warmer days, and looked more like grief over the demands and responsibilities that try to steal away our sense of wonder. What if we could awake once again and race to the window eager to see the snow falling and allow the joy and magic to flood our nervous system. Have you ever just loved snow so much that you could hardly bear it?
Can our beings hold both the weight of the knowledge of stories where society fails the most vulnerable and the wonder of the present moment we find ourselves in? I believe so. For many winters, I’ve vocalized hatred for this season because I worked alongside those suffering in it. I knew not what it meant to live in the present moment. Yoga, embodiment work, deconstruction, art, and therapy have guided me gently to place where there is space for both. And I hope this can be a gentle reminder for you that there is space for both.
As winter approaches quickly, my longing for you is that there is room for some slowness, even in the smallest of ways. I hope that you can name in the need in your body to rest more and that it inspires you to say ‘no’ more without guilt. I hope that you can wake one morning to falling snow and feel a sense of wonder and magic like you once did.
With love and light,
Holly