~ Finding beauty in the challenges of the season ~
I’m writing this as the afternoon sunshine streams through the window and the birds are being flung around on a fierce wind. Yesterday I walked through the beautiful quietness of a foggy landscape. So by the time you read this we’ll probably be shivering in ice and frosts again! (the lake above was frozen solid for more than a week during the last cold spell).
Such is the wildly varied weather of wintertime and what can make this time of year so hard to deal with. We might want to wish it away and feel the warmth of summer sunshine on our face again. And I’m definitely looking forward to that warmth too, but I also want to savour the beauty of this season in all its variety and challenges.
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The seven weeks between the fire festival of Imbolc (around the 1st February) and the Spring Equinox (on 20th March this year) mark the shift from winter into spring. It happens in waves, it’s not a linear progression. We oscillate between the two seasons and each year the journey feels slightly different.
Finding the joy in that variety can help release us from wishing things were different. We know that a day of glorious sunshine will likely be followed by something much greyer, windier, wetter and colder. Try embracing the uncertainty, the oscillations, and ride the season’s ups and downs with as much gracefulness as you can muster!
As without, so within… Can we find the grace to meet a day when we have little or no energy? When we feel ‘under the weather’, dispirited or downhearted. Can we connect to something a bit like inner sunshine and let it warm us, let it bring the warmth of self-compassion to how we feel without wishing the moment away. All time is precious.
The harsh and wintry days of February and March can bring extremes of weather (the internal and the external kinds) and learning to be curious and kind is a useful survival strategy.
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If you’d like to join me on the yoga mat, we’ll travel through this unpredictable time of year together, from Imbolc to the Spring Equinox, and find useful ways that our yoga practice can help.
The online class dates and details are here – Tuesday online yoga
Tracey Roberts 