Happy New Year!

The last glowing embers of autumn have been doused by winter rains. Leaves that fell as copper and gold have dulled to the colours of old leather and charcoal. The woods are dark. Trees stand naked to the raw wind, black against the leaden sky.

The sky glowers over a bleak landscape where mud slows every step as it sucks at feet, weighs down legs, hampers progress. The gloom drenched world is wet and heavy; sodden with winter.

Midwinter is a time for fireside and story, a time when the pressure of work eases a little for a few days of celebration. This is often spent with friends and family but it doesn’t have to be. The riotous and manic, indulgence and indolence are optional. The most precious, most meaningful moments can be those spent quietly with the moon and the owls, to just breathe.

Breathe the frigid, leaf-mould breath of winter – a tight, short breath foetid with age. The year is rotting, mouldering into the cold earth. Whatever we did with last year it is over. Successes can be built on, mistakes can be learned from but we must leave the past behind us. These dim days are a time for reassessment, a taking stock, an opportunity to step back from life and view it in a wider perspective, to consider our progress through the spinning years.

The year has turned, the solstice passed and even though days are still short and nights long the pendulum has swung away from the dark and is moving inexorably back towards the light. Now is a time to plan, to reconsider our path and renew resolve. Look, already tiny pale shoots below the dead leaves are pointing the way upwards. The child kicks within the earth’s womb. Even as the darkness seems endless, the cold unendurable, we should give thanks for our place in the endless cycle of the years, have faith in the promise of sunrise and move forwards with hope towards the spring.