Listening to winter…
The trees have shed their colorful autumn robes.
Winter is raging through the dark, empty branches
and I am listening.
I am listening to a beauty
that sometimes remains unseen.
I am listening.
I am listening to the seed hidden in the earth.
I am listening to the dark swallowing up the light.
I am listening to faith rising out of doubt.
I am listening to the need to believe without seeing.
I am listening.
I am listening to the season of contemplation,
to the urgency of our world’s need for reflection.
I am listening to all that waits within the earth,
to bulbs and seeds,
to deep roots dreaming.
I am listening to the sacred, winter rest.
I am listening.
I am listening to long nights,
comforting darkness,
fruitful darkness,
beautiful darkness.
I am listening to the darkness of the winter season.
I am listening to the sparks of hope within the darkness.
I am listening.
I am listening to storms raging out my window,
to storms raging in my heart.
I am listening to all that makes me pull my cloak a little tighter.
I am listening to trust buried deep in the ground of my being.
I am listening.
I am listening to the kind permission of the season to rest more often,
to reflect more deeply,
to pray without words.
I am listening to the sacrament of non-doing.
I am listening.
I am listening to my dreams and inner visions,
to the unknown wrapped in the mystery of my life,
to tears trapped in underground streams of my being,
to seeds watered daily by those tears.
I am listening.
I am listening to the quiet life in winter’s womb.
I am listening to winter, nurturing spring.
I am listening to brilliant winter sunsets
and lovely frosty mornings.
I am listening to snowflakes flying through the air,
to the cold winds that often blow out there,
to bare trees, so lovely in their emptiness,
to one leaf that never did let go.
I am listening.
I am listening to winter
handing over spring.
I am listening to the poetry of winter.
I am listening.
Taken from The Circle of Life: The Heart’s Journey Through the Seasons, © 2005 by Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr. Use by permission of Ave Maria Press. All rights reserved.