Fog

I know a lot of people start to miss the sun when the winter solstice approaches. Even when the sun is shining bright on winter days, there are fewer hours to enjoy its light.

We could focus only on how quickly we can entice the sun back. Or how busy we can keep ourselves so we don’t notice its absence. We might convince ourselves that life is a constant tumbling into the next moment. Careening from one experience into another. We might make less sunlight means less time to accomplish everything that matters to us.

One overcast morning, a fog blanketed everything. It looked as if the clouds had abandoned the sky and taken up residence in the familiar landscape. Fog slowly billowed and oozed like gargantuan living cotton candy, searching but not particularly interested in finding.

I was surprised by it. By how it was everywhere. Enveloping everything.

It invited me to be still. To mentally rest my hyperactive mind. So, I stopped and watched it for a long breath. And then another. And another. I was still.

Then I moved on with my day. But with a little less frenetic energy. And I was reminded that there is within me a stillness that doesn’t need to wait for a foggy morning to be called forth. There is a stillness within me. And it can inform any given moment with the mere coaxing of one conscious breath.

Maybe this is what the vanishing light of winter teaches us. The darkness invites us to stillness, just as that morning fog invited a moment of quiet. Winter is a time of rest for the natural world. We sometimes forget that we too are part of nature.  

Spring will come with its abundance and energy and growth. For now, the earth is inhaling. She is still for a moment.

Even beyond winter, we can also choose to inhale. To find a momentary stillness before hurtling into that phone call or meeting or email or social media post or appointment. We can find a stillness. And that stillness might be deep connection with a part of ourselves that we forget about when our thoughts run wild at breakneck pace. 

May the sun continue to shine abundantly through our winter days. And even when its light is absent, may we allow the invitation of stillness to be a blessing, within and around us.