Last night we had our first measurable snowfall of the season; perhaps an inch-and-a-half, perhaps two. It could hardly have been called an event compared with the storms I’d routinely experienced as a child growing up in Northeast Pennsylvania. But even this modest amount serves as a reminder that we are truly in the midst of winter; “the place where the White Giant sleeps,” as a beloved adopted Grandfather often reminded us.

In our telling of the Medicine Wheel, winter sits in the direction of the North, the place of childlike innocence and teachability. Traditionally, the long winter was the time to sit at the feet of our elders, to listen to their stories, and to eat the fruits of the past year’s labors while the snows fell and the winds mourned the death of living things. This is a season of reflection and purification, where the old things are broken down or swept aside to feed and make way for the new. 

There’s a great deal of Mystery in all of this. Despite our best efforts to shape and define our existences, we can never fully anticipate what will be revealed once the snows recede and the first slender whisps of green emerge.

And yet we feel the pull of it; the arrival of something drawing us towards itself with a force as irrefutable as it is ineffable…