Beginning Over, 27. Midwinter Blues

I have not been writing at all, lately. I have curled into myself, and begun a hibernation of sorts. I still go over the book I have written, detecting holes and trying to plug them, while I despair of it ever becoming something anybody wants to read. I have a painting that is sitting, waiting for the final touches that never seem to come. My thoughts refuse to leave my head.

Partially, it's because the world is so messed up, so wrong, so much worse, that a small despair has crept in, that, no matter how much I, or anybody, cry out against it, nothing will change. I feel we are like ants that can do nothing about the anthill we live in because we have no say in anything that goes on. We merely continue plodding forward, building our anthill further out, ignoring the tunnels that are caving in as a consequence.

So, I turn to nature, and take my walks whenever I can. Of late, that is not too often because of the weather. And the few days that are good, I have errands to run or work to do. But I realize that nature is always there, always continuing its circle of life and death, and that we should pay attention because we are part of that nature. At this point of the year, the darkness always brings me down. I can understand how past cultures celebrated the solstice for the promise that it brings of the sun returning, and the light growing once more. I have decided to join those ancient and modern pagans and celebrate the changes in nature, as well. 

It is only right to observe nature and its changes and to stop fighting them. Day will always follow night, and summer will always follow winter. If not within our lifetimes, then within our children's or our grandchildren's, things will get better. Rights we have lost will be regained, along with others. Wars will stop, homes will be rebuilt. Lives lost will be celebrated, new lives created. This doesn't mean we should just sit back, but that if we lose the battle we are fighting to make this a better world, we still haven't lost the war. Our lifetimes are a speck within the greater scheme. One grain of sand lying next to another, and then another, and then another, will make a beach.  

So, as I battle my old colicky computer on this rainy and windy morning, I know that Winter will soon be over, and the Light will bring Spring back, again. I know that, however dark it may seem right now, it will get lighter, and hope will always be hiding behind the horizon, rising earlier and earlier each day. And the cycle will then begin again, and will deliver us into yet another night, all in due time. All will be well.

Life continues.