Winter Wellness
A glowing warmth from inside the Agraria barn. (Photo by Maureen Fellinger)
By Suzanne Perry Slavens
From the time of the snow-melt
…I listened to the earth-talk
the root-wrangle
the arguments of energy
the dreams lying
Just under the surface
then rising,
and becoming
at the last moment
flaring and luminous–
the patient parable
of every spring and hillside
year after difficult year.
-Mary Oliver
Each winter, the land demonstrates to us that rest is required for regeneration. The maple leaves, fallen, lovingly collected and strewn across the late-October garden are now shrouded with a warm blanket of snow. Moonlight illuminates the surface of this miracle of frozen insulation while beneath, dark and humble beings begin to slowly and tenaciously transform the rotting remnants of the wild tangled bravado of August.
We have built a culture that is deepening its divorce from these rhythms of being. We have expectations, medications, caffeine and digital devices that stimulate our brains into thinking that a change in the weather is the only difference that the seasons bring. We have created systems that force us to ignore the natural agrarian rhythm of winter's slowness. Often the only thing that will slow us down are the illnesses produced by imbalances in the microcosmos that coinhabits our flesh. The viruses and bacteria that proliferate upon and within our bodies at times reveal our vulnerabilities and can reveal a central lesson of this season.
Winter can bring an awareness of our finitude that humbles us into a deepened experience of our dependence on one another and upon the Truth that silently dwells within. To remain well, we must reach toward that place where we release the illusion of self-sufficiency and begin to embody the humility so beautifully demonstrated to us by the humus - the living layer of the humble soil. This humility enables us to enter into an authentic giving and receiving that permeates oikos - the root word of ecosystem - the family of life. What we relinquish during the long dark nights leading to the sun’s return, enables us to deeply rejoice when the cold and lifeless land is again transfigured through mutual interdependence into August’s endless abundance.
We need not wait for illness or crisis in order to stop, rest, listen and connect to these rhythmic lessons of the agrarian liturgical year. Rather than waiting for these lessons to be forced upon us in the end by our frailties, we can actively and joyfully pursue the meaning of the parable often forgotten underfoot, hidden in the humus, silent beneath the snow. In so doing, we shall be made well.
Cultivating wellness requires unique intentionality during the cold dark days when we are so distant from the sun, the source of our life. It is a time when we can build health by deepening relationships with one another, pursuing stillness and by strengthening our ties to life-giving allies in the natural world -- plants, animals, and micro-organisms. Our mental, physical and spiritual health is intimately bound together with our relationship to the transcendent, with one another and and with all other forms of life. During these long and sometimes sleepless nights, this is the time set aside to descend with our minds into our hearts to encounter the truth who dwells there in the darkness. While there is a time that the soul is called into solitude in secret and dark hours, the path to wholeness is walked in community. In the fullness of time, the one reality that endures is us.
*Suzanne Perry Slavens is a Youth Educator at Agraria.