I saw a group of deer walking across the frozen lake this morning, heading towards sustenance wherever that may exist. There isn’t much out there this late in the winter. They, like me, await the thaw and the blossoming of the next season, the one of colorful possibilities, maybe even revealing new sources of nourishment. This season, of whites and grays, bones cold and stiff, starkness erasing all distractions from the frivolity of life, hits hard and lasts long. This season in the north. There is a domination of openness that calls, even invites. Underneath, unseen lies many layers of hardened sod covered in ice. To tread one needs a layer of metal underfoot to grip the uncertainty, to avoid feet in the air, hips hitting hard. Traversing the tribulations of the icy Earth. Conversely, the momentary spectrum of color that same ice creates when the winter sun hits it just so, gives me firmly planted feet and hope for what is to come.
I’ve heard many compare a lifetime to the seasons, the winter of one’s life being that last go around before the mystery is solved. No one really knows about that, though some speak as if they know, that they have solved the mystery, that they have a direct line of communication with God, just because they say they do, not understanding that that very claim negates everything they preach.
I have read of those asserting random unexpected connections with the divine, even death then a returning. They, all races, all ages, all genders, their lives indelibly changed. I for one believe them. Most are skeptical of those people, more so than the preachers who say they know, and request money to divulge their secret messages from on high.
For me, the divine comes, not in messages from others, but in sparks of insight at the most unexpected times. In the prism that floats across the room when the sun hits God knows what at just the perfect angle, or when walking in the zero temperature, all body parts covered except the eyes, led down a pristine path of white into which I forge my own footprints, breaking the blanket of snow with each step and I see diamonds dancing all around on the white layer, me walking through this one time only choreography, performed for this audience of one.
God has been whitewashed by the utterings of those who claim to know the way others should live to achieve what they themselves, can only imagine. Surely most, if not all, reside in the root of their own insecurity sinking into the desire to get, to usurp, to control, those motivations that I, in this lifetime, am transcending, hopefully with no connection to what will be bestowed. I seek to connect to the mysterious, often fleeting, power that is only mine, unique to the timing of my spring, my summer, my autumn and my stark winter.
