Photo by Peggy J. Davenport, Winters Trees.

Winter is a time when we try to be geared up for the holiday, the fun of it, the fresh starts that it brings. But the first time that gray shadow crosses across the lands our entire self falls as often the rain, the sky seems to. It can be crushing, breathless. And depressing no matter the family, the friends, the celebrations, the song, and the fresh starts. All of our get up and go just full stops. Like a surprising fall into a boar pit along our path. And we can’t often figure out how to climb out of this place.

I personally do get the winter blues. I never thought they were “that bad” but I can see my work fail, myself fall.

This year I have gone in with the clear sight that it will happen, and does happen. That I am ‘one of those people.’

I haven’t prepared as well as I would have liked. But I did stumble across one magazine which I have put into my practice, my day, my routine, to give myself a calm and a focus.

Breathe magazine works for centering myself in most seasons, but is also like a rope thrown to me within that boar pit during the month of January go into February.

Issue 10, the winter issue opened to where I always begin, it’s welcome first page and opening message as a doorway into the entire magazine and the pages to come.

“Inspiration.”

Already that word is a meditative focus for me. What gives me inspiration? Where do I find it? Do I seek it? Have I stopped, or forgotten to seek to be inspired?

“Where does it comes from? And why does it sometimes slide out of view in winter?

“…Look again…”

“That darkness? Try to embrace it.”

Set forth your alarm clock and relish a few precious minutes of peace and reflection in the morning.” (Easier said than done when one does not want to get out of bed upon the sound of alarm to begin with….but advice I am struggling to try and take even before reading this.)

“The rhythms of winter.”

“Wildlife.”

These shared parts spotlighted themselves to me. I liked the sound of “Rhythms of winter” or rhythms of anything in life works, too. Funny since, by itself, rhythms doesn’t do much for me as a word.

I thought back to what I had missed.

A few days worth getting out even in the rain to see the huddle of the birds in winter, their heads tucked into themselves. The sound of the quiet. The cars on wet streets from the road. The color of wet leaves on the ground. The red of a cardinal against the dullness of the day. The sleeping gardens. The migrating ducks with that most amazing green neck. Can I take that to a paint store to match? No jewel seems to quite.

The curve of a tree which I never saw while full of leaves when green. Now I see their reach, their age, their story, and their depth of relationship upon this Earth. The gray tree against the gray sky upon a brach a  snow white egret sits. That…right there is magic. My mood suddenly lifts like the birds across the land when catching sight of me near. Wings spread wide…I go home and I write.

#Breathe #BreatheMagazine #Winter #WinterBlues #GrayWinter #Winters #ColdWinters #Inspired #Inspiration #Depression #SeasonalDepression #Write #Writing #Writer #Seek #Seeking #Rhythms #MorningRhythms #MorningMeditation #Meditation #PeggyJDavenport #Tree #Trees #WinterTime #Hygge #Magazine #WintersTrees