Last Days of January

It’s almost too easy to find beauty in Advent, the weeks leading up to Christmas. The incarnation itself is pure poetry, and if you’re not into profundity, the nostalgia of the season gives us the excuse we need to indulge, celebrate, and enjoy. Maybe the original purpose of Advent is forever lost to us amidst the trappings of Christmas that have given it a new meaning, but maybe it can be reclaimed in January, what has become the real season of waiting and groaning.

We all experience those January blues. Winter has outlived its cozy charm, and though the days are short, it feels like the longest month, just one to get through until February, which for some reason we all think will be better. And we all have our own ways of getting through it. Last year my strategy was to stay as busy as possible hit up the gym 4-5 times a week to get those lovely endorphins since being outside was less than pleasant. Not a bad coping mechanism, but as I’ve been leaning into the practice of living with the natural seasons, I’ve wondered if perhaps January holds something for us that we are in danger of missing if we’re too focused on not focusing on the present moment. The silence and the darkness might speak. So I tried to listen to January, and wrote this poem called “For All the Gloves I Lost” (because I seem to lose 2-3 pairs every year) or “Maybe January Isn’t So Bad After All”

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Distant windchimes and dry creaking branches
The muted song of the season
Autumn’s dying beauty has come
To its full death
The chill in the air
Paints every inhale sharp
To lungs who long to drink 
Full sun again
For now only sipping 
On hazy rations of light

But the sting is most keenly felt
In my fingers, thirsty and bloodless
As naked and exposed as the trees
Without their canopy
They lament the loss of their protection
And wonder where 
The single glove lies lost
Somewhere in a muddy puddle,
Never to be reunited with its pair
The only fit palm that could hold 
Winter’s grief
And I feel a tremble underneath
My shivering hand, 
Not in fear though
More like the shuddering breath
Of a sleeping giant
The gentle rest and fall 
Betraying a secret

Maybe the world has died
But it is not dying

It remembered something 
I, in the Grey Town, forgot
There is a turning, turning, 
Of all things
Even so in the hard-packed soil
And green-less landscape
Frosty doubt cannot stand to 
Hope in hiding

If you learn to still, you’ll hear it
The compassion of winter
Whispers, wait,
All is not as it seems
Beneath the surface and ken,
Slumbering life conceives of life
Green shoots will break free
Buds will burst forth fragrant and full
The sun will remember
To cast its loving gaze upon the earth
When the lion shakes his mane

But all in their time.

In our time, we are invited
To listen
And inhale the inner voice
Informing our deepest being.
Look unafraid there.
Now free to let the shadows be
Instead of excommunicating them
With our clumsy efforts
Frantic that no holy mystery
Should linger in the corners of our minds
What if we leave them to dance
With the flickering flame of candles
Or move freely over the land
With the clouds pushed by the wild wind,
Unbothered by our unknowing 
Content in quiet awe?

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So by all means, make yourself as cozy as possible with the rest this winter. Eat good food, watch that film you’ve been wanting to watch, make a new friend and have them over for dinner, read an old favorite book, go for a walk and come back to a mug of hot chocolate, take up a new hobby, dream about your summer holiday. But in between the comfy pursuits, can I exhort you to stop and listen to Winter?