FWD: DEEP WINTER Gary Zukav

[barbara100 at jps.net]

 DEEP WINTER

The deepest moment of the winter comes not in January or February, but in
December when the night is longest and the day is shortest.  This day and
night is called the Winter Solstice.  It is the mirror image of the Summer
Solstice in June, when the day is longest and the night is shortest.

Winter Solstice is a very powerful time in the cycle of life and death,
death and rebirth, disintegration and renewal that controls all Life on the
Earth, including you.  It is the time when motion ceases, and at the same
moment, Life begins to stir again.  Animals in hibernation and seeds in
sleep beneath the snow will not move until the spring, but deep within them
a process has completed itself.  The contraction of energy that the long
nights and cold days reflect reaches its limit, and a cycle reverses itself.
>From that moment forward, even though the winter remains to unfold as it
must, the spring has been born, and the summer, and the harvests of the
summer with it.

This dark and trying season is repeated in your life again and again.  Each
tragedy, loss, failure, and humiliation reaches its inmost movement, spends
its energy, and from that long journey another begins - a journey to warmth,
light, and expansion.  The season of celebration, of growth, of Life and of
movement is repeated again in the same way.  One season follows the other.
The arrival of one signals the coming of the other.  They do not exist
apart.

These seasons of the year, and seasons of your life, come and go, complete
themselves and give way to each other whether you are aware of the dynamic
that controls them or not.  If you are not, the seasons appear to have lives
of their own and you forget they are each part of a cycle - a cycle that you
have encountered many times before and will encounter many times again.
Your life is built on this cycle of seasons - on the continual repetition of
them.  The arrival of winter, the coming of darkness and death, initiates
the coming of light and life.  This cycle controls the unfolding of your
life and all within it.

When you are aware of this cycle, you can participate with it.  You cannot
stop the death that comes in the winter nor the life that comes with the
summer, but you can determine in the winter what will be born in the summer.
You can contribute your intelligence and will to the intelligence and
movement of a dynamic larger than you.  You can plant the seed that will
sprout in the spring.  You can lay the foundation for a different winter to
come after the summer that has yet to arrive.  You can only do this for
yourself.

We are in deep winter.  The nights are long and the days are short.  The
Earth grows cold and life retreats.  Now is the time for you to awaken to
your place in this cycle, and to use it consciously.  What is darkest in
your life?  What loss or disappointment, fear or terror moves through you?
What powerlessness haunts you?  These are given to you for your benefit.
They are brought to your awareness so that you can change them.  They are
your avenues to the clarity and love that you are waiting for.  You cannot
become fearless at your command, but you can determine how you will respond
to your fear.  You cannot become kind with one intention, but you can
determine how you will respond to your own brutality, righteousness, and
fear.

This is the power of the deep winter.  It challenges you, confronts you, and
shows you what you must change in yourself.  It is a holy and precious
season.  It illuminates your holy and precious life.  It is your potential
beckoning to you, disguised as an adversary, a tragedy, or a disaster.  Will
the adversary, tragedy or disaster shape your experience, or will you shape
your experience of it?  Will your fears overwhelm you, or will they show you
new and different ways to respond to them?

 What new life is stirring in you this Deep Winter?

Love,

Gary




Copyright © Gary Zukav 2002

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