To every thing there is a season

Winter is a season of ironies. The first day sets the tone: the winter solstice is the darkest, shortest day of the year—but it is also the turning point at which the darkness goes into retreat, heralding the lengthening of the days and the return of the sun.

The dark comes earlier and stays longer now, but there is no time of year so full of light as a clear winter day. The sun drums down on the forest floor unhindered by leaf or haze, magnified, when snow is on the ground, to an unbearable brightness.

With the loss of foliage, the countryside has been stripped of decoration. But winter is to shape what autumn is to color. It is only in winter that the long sweeping vistas of river and hill yield themselves up to us, disclosed by the uncurtained trees. And though the beauty of the landscape is more severe, winter’s black and white reveals the good bones of the land and the intricate anatomy of the trees in a way denied by the pampered opulence of warmer days.

Winter does something special for interiors, as well. There is no other time of year that our homes and hearthsides seem as inviting as on wintry days, when we rely on them most to protect and to comfort us.

Conventional wisdom says that those who live in climates of unchanging warmth are the lucky ones. We’re not so sure. Sameness eventually stales; but in a climate with seasons, every time of year carries us into a new country. And each season arrives as a gift in the arms of the last. Without winter, there can be no thrill of early spring, and the heat of summer would become merely oppressive if it were not followed by the vigor of autumn.

But, perhaps, the greatest gift of the seasons is the reminder they give us of the great pattern of life of which we are a part: the process by which birth leads to ripening, then death and, then, renewal. We see this great drama re-enacted year after year and in acting out the rituals of each season—planting, mowing, putting up storm windows or screens, raking leaves, taking out holiday decorations, shoveling, taking out the quilts and putting them away again—we each perform our own role within the dance.

In a society that worships youth, denies death and defines aging as a disease, it is not surprising to see the idea of living in perpetual sunshine held up as an ideal. But those who live in northern climes, imbued with the annual rhythms, are privy to another possibility: that eternal life is not to be found by avoiding death, but by passing through it.

It’s a thought worth meditating on as we celebrate winter’s austere pleasures, paving the way for the return of the sun.

Dr. Punnybone

Merry Christmouse