I found my answer when I was thumbing through Walden by Thoreau the other day.
I’d been working through a couple of weeks of being in some sort of a “funk”. This somber tone edging up to a low-grade depressed state. This kind of thing is not unfamiliar to me and generally only lasts for a few days to a couple of weeks. This mood is often accompanied by some set of existential questions. Sometimes I’m able to formulate a semblance of answers for myself. Sometimes, more questions.
Being in nature is the salve I need to either, draw myself deeper inward locating my internal compass or to provide the energetic shift necessary to move me upward and onward.
Walden hit it on the head for me and did both simultaneously.
“After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what-how-when-where? But, there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.”
So, I march through these cold, quarantined Chicago winter days and watch the morning mist hover over a snow filled field and catch big puffy snowflakes on my tongue. Or, I push my kiddos down the hill and watch them laugh gleefully before spilling over the sides of the sled.
I’ll march Forward! Some questions finding answers. Some just swirling above my head like the big puffy snowflakes.
Join me out there. Winter in Chicago (or wherever this finds you) can unlock some secrets and be glorious indeed.
Thanks for the share…