The shimmering, colourful lights are slowly beginning to disappear, one house at a time. They are vanishing with deliberate purpose. The long and exhausting period of preparation, followed by a frantic but brief celebration, has come and gone.
And now we turn our gaze to spring. The slow, subtle, unassuming pace of the coming of spring.
But if you get still and quiet for a moment, and look to the left and to the right, it will hit you any minute now.
Winter is here.
It’s sincerely cold outside, and you realize, perhaps for the first time, that winter has only just begun.
Nature seems to be sleeping, or at least playing possum. Everything that was once vibrant and colourful, beautiful and vivacious, is now pretending to be dead.
And what about you?
What are you doing?
Going for a nap? Hibernating? Finding a nice cave to snuggle next to a grizzly bear, and fight her, along with her cubs, for a warm blanket?
Are you going to wait until it gets warm and sunny? Wait for a more reasonable time to do something? Wait for tomorrow and another tomorrow? Or are you going to get to work on your dreams?
Waiting for tomorrow is a horrific trap. Waiting for the right time is another.
We have to remind ourselves that we are not separate, but very much a part of the whole. A small, fractured piece, yes, but a piece of the infinite whole, regardless.
We are not on the outside, looking in. We are all part of this one marvelous creation, and we get to give back, push back, with gusto.
We don’t get to pick our life.
Pick and choose the right season. Pick and choose the right mood. Who we are, our challenges and scars, or what we are capable of becoming.
Winter is the perfect time for silent reflection and map making.
The forgotten artisan craft of dreaming.
Planning. Preparing. Practicing. Investing. Risk taking.
Leaping into the unknown possibilities.
Take this time of year and design your map, if for no other reason, than that its dark and cold outside.
It’s icicles on the testicles kind of cold.
Dangling participles on the nipples kind of cold. (Ok. I may have gone too far here, but very few words rhyme with nipples).
It’s cold. It’s winter. And I get that you’ve got a terrible vitamin D deficiency.
But get over yourself already.
The sun rises late and it fades early.
Such is winter.
No matter.
The hours in your day remain the same.
Don’t waste this beautiful moment.
Don’t waste the quiet, self-reflective days of winter. Don’t ignore today, imprison yourself in yesterday, and wait endlessly for tomorrow.
It’s your turn. Your time.
The spring and summer can wait.
Embrace Winter. Make your map.
Where are you in your life?
Why are you here? What brought you here?
Where do you want to go? What do you need to get there?
What do you have? What do you need?
When are you going to get started?
