The coming of mid-winter
It is mid-winter. Officially, in meteorological and weather reckoning, winter is a season that begins on a specific date and time. This is December 21, the winter solstice where there is again a reckoning of daylight and darkness, and then an imperceptible lengthening of the days begins again.
That the days are getting longer is a factual reality but it is difficult to discern at first. The darkness and twilight gloom of daylight lingers. There is no sudden burst of sunshine and warmth. Indeed, the very day that the light begins to increase and the dark begins to decrease is said to mark the start of winter.
But is this so? This dating of the start of winter does not harmonize with nature, with what we feel in our bones.
For this is mid-winter– not the start of it.
When winter begins
Winter began when the last of the leaves toppled from the skeletal tree branches. When the rich carpet of leaves lost its vibrancy in the first frost, slowly beginning to disintegrate underfoot, losing its aromatic scent of fall and deliciously crunchy sound and feel.
It began when the last of the migratory birds took wing south, the long V of birds in flight no longer a sight in the sky, their calling no longer part of the woodland nature tunes.
Winter began when the last of harvest was gathered in. When the rich droppings of acorns and nuts in this mast year ceased, and trees folded themselves inward to the tasks of rooting and restoration, the tasks not of autumn but of winter.
Take note of what happens when you take a deep intake of breath in mid-winter. The cold air rushes into the lungs. Breathe in too deeply and too quickly and the cold air can feel like a sharp stabbing pain. But breathe in with a gentle pace, and the cold air can feel invigorating.
Replenishment in winter
There is something in the brisk northern air that can stir the blood into sudden movement, a feeling of something coming alive, even in this season more known for rooting and resting. A winter’s morning can be bright and alive and replenishing.
Frost sparkling in a buttery winter sun gives a festive air to the season. Winter is about rooting and resting, but that is not the only mood in the air. (literally!). There is also festivity and life, of a stirring of something vitally and deeply alive.
Summer is often noted as the season of bloom and vibrance, but there can be a certain somnolence that sets into a deep summer afternoon- the drone of insects, the heavy deep shadows, that invite rest and respite.
No season is a single mood, a single task, a single action.
The gifts of winter
The gifts that winter has to offer are both predictable and unpredictable. Frosty mornings, grey dawns, cold twilights, all of those certainly combine to provide a sense of winter. This is its qualities of rooting in and resting. But there is more to winter than this.
Now and again there is an unexpected warm day. “The last nice day!” we used to say in my childhood, basking in the delicious glow of an out-of-season warm and sunny December day. December could still hold an almost spring like feel- the sun bright if somewhat muted, the cold air tempered by a soft southern wind.
And even today as I walked in the woods, there was the gift of a bright and warm December day. Mid-winter it might be– but mid-winter can still hold its own kind of unexpected beauty and warmth, its own sense of vitality and bountiful life– alongside the rooting, the resting and the replenishment.
Mid-winter: not just a date on a calendar
Mid-winter is more than a fixed date on a calendar. Perhaps it is not even that fixed date of the winter solstice. Mid-winter is deep into the winter season. The abundance of autumn with its blazing colours everywhere has past. But here and there in the woods, bright leaves linger. Buttery sunlight streaks the morning, and the woods are softly alive. Yes, there will be frost and cold and winds from the north. But this is mid-winter, and this is its gift: a time of both rooting and replenishment, resting and vitality. Go outside– take a deep breath of mid-winter. Feel its pulse in everything within and around you.