Hibernation

       I need to connect more with nature.  I have been looking at the changing world around me, and it's been making me a little bit panicky, because I've not been making peace in my heart with the change, I have been making snarkiness and annoyance instead.  When  it snows, I get grumpy at how horrible people in Utah are at driving in the winter. It's cold. It's dark. I have to do all this Christmas stuff and I don't want to do anything.  What the heck, Michelle? 

       So, I did a meditation about trees in the winter. (I still can't figure out if I'm "doing" meditation right, and I spend most of my time worrying about whether or not I'm meditating, which should tell you a lot about me.)  The trees take on a huge physical change.  In fact, they appear..um.....DEAD. Their color is gone, their leafy texture has fallen, and they look like dark skeleton limbs reaching up into the winter dusk.   To the outside observer, there is a stillness.....a lack of action and forward movement.  On the inside, complicated, life changing things are happening, and absolute miracles are occurring.  

       Have you ever heard a tree "apologize" for what it's going through in the winter?  Does it get all pissed off at itself because it doesn't look like it used to, and does it get nervous about what others will think about its physical change? Um. No. 

       The trees take this season and they understand it on a deep level. They know that it is time for quiet renewal, and careful building up of their energy to take on the coming year.  The tree knows that it will be different next year, and it's peaceful with the "death" of this year's tree.

       I would like to be at peace with the "death" of this 2014 version of me.   This is the Michelle that I've been this year, and all of the things that I though, did, and that happened to me were for my ultimate benefit. I don't need to beat myself up over anything. I don't need to go and dig up the corpses that should remain buried.  I am at peace with this "me", and eagerly look forward to the rebirth of another year!    I LOVE the song  "Ring Out, Wild Bells!"  It's this old song, in a very minor chord, and it just has this delicious dark essence to it! I'm always excited when we sing it in church. Yippee! The emo-song! 

Here are a few of my favorite verses (from the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, on which it is based)

Ring out the old, ring in the new--,
Ring happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Oh my goodness! If you have never heard this song, you MUST go listen to it! It is stunning.  The tune and the feeling of the song absolutely encapsulate what I'm talking about here!  

         So, bears the question. Are you okay with who you have become and what you have learned this year? Are you ready to let things stay in the past, and live in this precious present which you have been given?  Are you okay with the things that are going on INSIDE of you, even though people might not YET be able to see it on the OUTSIDE?