Dear Friends,

We’ve made it past the holidays and stepped into the New Year. This is the time of year when we live with less daylight and most of us spend more time indoors, especially in the bitter cold and snow. If we pay attention to what we see that in the natural world, there is something called “winter rest” that is slowly and quietly happening. The animals are in their burrows and the plants are in their dormant stage. Although they look quite still, all the while in these protected realms, there is photosynthesis and cell development going on in the buds and twigs. The trees use little water and sugar and take care of all the housekeeping involved in the growth cycle. They utilize this period of dormancy to prepare for the time ahead and the push of the lifecycle that responds to the changing conditions. If trees and plants don’t get to stop and attend to their own nutriments their lives are dramatically shortened. It’s the same way the engine that continually runs burns out earlier.

With the stripped-down landscapes, the leafless trees, and quiet gardens we have less to distract us in winter. There are no gardens to weed, no lawns to mow, or lakes we want to swim in. The cold and darkness beckon us to conserve ourselves for the longer days of spring. If we are farmers, we have a season of leisure in which to recommit to our most cherished ways of being. We all have fallow time when we can rest and restore our energy and our intentions.

Believing that there is a season of rest, may feel unrealistic or alien. In our world with electric lights, twenty-four-hour news cycles and unlimited access to technology we can be plugged in and feel productive any time of the day or night. We keep going despite the natural world which tells all the beings to slow down and rest. But true creativity and innovation don’t come from busyness. They are the children of stillness. This is the time of year we are invited to turn inward and renew our commitments to what really matters. The Buddha and sangha lived in tune with the cycles of the Earth and Shakyamuni Buddha gave a teaching on the example of Sariputta, also known as Upatissa:

“Settled at the root of a tree,

With shaven head, clad in a robe,

The elder foremost in wisdom

— Upatissa just meditates.

He has become calm and at rest,

Wise in speech and not self-centered;

He’s shaken off unwholesome states

— Like wind would leaves from a tree.

He has become calm and at rest,

Wise in speech and not self-centered;

He has plucked off unwholesome states

— Like wind would leaves from a tree.”

(Sariputta Thera: Keeping the Wheel Rolling, Thag.17.2, A.Olendzki trans, 2 November 2013, Access to Insight. BCBS Edition.) * See full license below.

I am reminded as we approach the belly of winter, of the richness of practicing with this change and with the continuation of this season. The fragility of life and impermanence become more pronounce and poignant in winter. We hear the call for quiet and are subject to the natural limitations that come with ice and snow. Our travels are restricted; we aren’t free to go when and where we choose. We learn that we are also animals whose lives are conditioned by nature.

I am sharing a poem I wrote a few years back reflecting on the ways the winter added to my practice. The conditions that can sometimes seem so hard can also teach us the patience to stay, even with change. Additionally, this season demonstrates Interbeing—our connection to this Earth and to the other beings who help create our safety and wellness.

Early Spring

Don’t let the spring come too soon for I need more winter to humble me.

Let the cold climb beneath my covers,

creep between my cells into the sinew and marrow of my cozy bed.

Give me stinging winds blasting my cheeks; shock my toes with freezing water in my boot. Keep the landscape gray, and the skeleton branches forever barren.

Let all the birds be voiceless, absent from the world now quiet as a bone. Stay frozen and bleak until I am wind carved, hollowed out, an empty log that is only contour, swept free of flesh and waiting.

When I’ve become as wanting as

a stone,

knowing there is nothing left to eat

in the frozen ground. I watch hope slip on black ice

and shatter, smash into only this, only now.

This crystal moment of things as they are and the eye blink of knowing

just how easily my shell can be broken.  I see the crisp edges of helplessness

reminding me that I am not equipped to live alone in this world.

Stay until I am broken

and there is nothing to lean on and I know it’s only grace and kindness that keeps life alive.

The well must be empty before it can be filled.  Let me spill it all out,

the wanting, the leaning in, the desire for change and ease and what’s around the corner. Stay until I am empty, purified, made present and whole.

Stay, until I am—just arrived.

~  Celia Landman

My wish is that we all arrive in this winter with slowness and dignity that acknowledges our connection to something greater than our small selves. We can see we too are formed by the rhythm of this cosmos and know we belong to the natural world. With that understanding, I hope that we all can embrace rest and this time of simplicity that makes ready for something new, something that will come to us without effort or strain, the insight and wisdom that arrives when we give space to just be, to stop, to rest, and to heal our lives.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

*©2005 Andrew Olendzki. You may copy, reformat, reprint, republish, and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: (1) you only make such copies, etc. available free of charge; (2) you clearly indicate that any derivatives of this work (including translations) are derived from this source document; and (3) you include the full text of this license in any copies or derivatives of this work. Otherwise, all rights reserved.