I love winter. I love sweaters. I love coats. I love cozy fires, warm cider, and romantic movies. Most of all I LOVE the Holiday season celebrations and Christmas. There is something magical about the chill in the air and knowing one day I too may smell snow. (Yes that was a reference to a fav- Gilmore Girls!) As someone who loves ALL of the things about this season it’s hard to not feel these things this year. It’s hard to feel meh, not very jolly, and not really celebratory. In past years, even during the height of COVID, my office in the hospital was jokingly referred to as Santa’s workshop and my home looked like Hallmark threw up on and in it. Even though at times I may not have felt overly jolly, I still went out of my way to make this time of year festive and fun. This year my office is bare, except for a cardboard Harry Potter Christmas tree set up to keep questions at bay and a feeling of obligation to decorate my home as we host several Christmas parties this year. In the past we’ve maybe hosted one gathering and this year we have several. This has been a dream of mine to host, bake and celebrate with all of those that mean something to me whether through church, friendship, collegially, and family. It’s like the Universe is opening up for me, pushing me to celebrate this time of year when my insides want to crawl in a hole and hide.
This is an uncommon response for me, especially this time of year, and I’m trying to pin point why this is. As an enneagram 6, I don’t trust feelings and tend to lean on something’s wrong or not right, and with my dominate 5 wing at play, I’m trying to do everything I can to read and listen to find something that will make sense or change my mind and spirit. The pressure to make sense is not helpful. At. All. Each time I come back to being overly tired and feeling a heavy weight of grief, some I am trying to explain and some I don’t understand but know is there. I am someone who continues to carry on, even through really hard times and loss. I have ignored the need for my spirit to process and pause. Even when I thought I had taken time to do this, I am beginning to realize I’ve only scratched the surface. It’s like a rock quarry, a very tightly filled quarry. I’ve removed a few rocks here and a really big rock there, but there are many still sitting waiting to dislodge. I realize I am moving into a season of winter spiritually and the idea of hibernation and wilderness is scary. I don’t trust it and I don’t want to do it, even knowing spring is on the other side.
I have walked through wildernesses before, undoing much of the narratives I told myself and was told as a child and young adult, especially religious narratives that were not serving me anymore. That has been hard work, engaging deconstruction (buzz word!) only to integrate and rebuild an understanding and belief system that is my own that I can stand on and embrace. This continues to this day and will forever being built upon as I grow as a human and child of God. I have found my wildernesses to be bare of individuals at times but always full of books, podcasts, and music. I have found safety in filling up the vulnerable downtime I do have with more reading and more learning about awakenings and stirrings within my heart and soul. I love certainty. A lived life is filled with uncertainty. An intentional spiritual life is a journey through uncertainty. I think my mind is tired of trying to hold onto or find certainty and it’s time for my soul to rest in the understandings I have gained and allow time for an inward process and integration to continue while I essentially go underground to allow this time to happen. I am struggling to trust this hibernation is what I need, even though my mind and my soul are telling me.
I was encouraged to watch how the animals and natural things embrace this season and to learn and trust that my own spirit needs to engage this winter season the same. I need to bless this lack of feeling and honor the grief that this pause will allow me to engage and hold, trusting that spring is a season away. As someone who has been accused to skipping Holy Saturday for resurrection Sunday, this is a time of holy hibernation, holy reflection and holy love, allowing myself to be carried along by that which is calling me to rest and renewal.
The Journey Home 