Soul Food Gems from the Seasons: Winter

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As Spring is completing its work and we round the bend toward summer, focus with me for a second on these seasons we are moving between and the correlating emotional and spiritual phases that are available to us in our journey.  I found a couple soul-food gems here that I want to share. First, I must back up with you a little bit.  Recall not too long ago:

Winter. The trees shed their leaves, become bare and the darkness of long nights and short days extends longer and longer. The ground is hard and dry, crackling under foot. In my own experience this past winter there has been quite a turning inward, withdraw, hibernating, breaking off limbs that no longer serve (quite literally…total hip replacement for me in December!).  Sometimes internal territory, soul territory, can be so disorienting.  Ever feel that way? 

What is essential…and what is not? 

What is original…and what have I manufactured?

What holds meaning….and what just keeps me busy?

What is swimming with the current…and what is senseless striving in the other direction?

What is coasting with the current in a direction that is easy…but doesn’t take me to where I want to be soul-wise?

What breaks your heart…and what have you numbed with distraction?

When you reflect on the recent months through these questions, what can you acknowledge and
honor that was old or in the way that has gone and created space for something else?

What I found myself living into this winter was a need for CONTENTMENT.  It is a season of diminishing. And sometimes that can create a spirit of restlessness. “I will be ok when ___________”.  Or, “I will not be ok until_____________”. There is a waiting that is done well, and alternately, a waiting that slays your spirit.  Expectancy vs disillusionment and cynicism.

It is what Paul speaks of in Philippians 4: “Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.” [Message]. 

It takes commitment.  If the One who makes me who I am is near, what else is there to look for? But it takes declaring what you have even when you look down and your hands appear empty. 

[invitation:  Click here to listen to “Everything is Mine in You” by Christy Nockels – experience this truth not just though reading but the hearing of song.] 

When my skin is crawling or when my body is craving or my eyes are heavy, when my heart is wanting…fixing eyes on what is unseen takes skill and tenacity. But it is a practice that is worth the waiting.  

And Winter does its work to clear the way for what is next on our …Spring.

With that perspective…. Stay tuned for Spring’s memorandum to our hearts...

I enjoy this big picture of the journey I am describing.  In this post, we are reflecting on the
"Letting Go" and "Receptivity"that were cultivated in the winter.
Next, we will lean into "Gathering" and "Budding".

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