Life
Meanders
“Life
meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and
seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time,
they grow again.”
Katherine
May (Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, p.68; Riverhead
Books, 2021
I love
this little book about winter—even though I’m not a fan of actual winter’s cold
weather. Katherine May uses winter as a metaphor for the times in our lives
when we endure the difficult things that life brings of its own accord. At my stage
of life, for many of us that means painful joints, gut issues, falls that break
bones, and a host of other age-related maladies. We tell ourselves that it doesn’t
have to be this way; that if we just eat a healthy diet, get daily exercise,
drink plenty of water, and don’t stress ourselves, we will be fit and healthy
to the end of a long and prosperous life. That’s just the Cheshire cat blowing
smoke rings. Or was that the caterpillar with the hooka?
The
truth is that living healthy is very helpful, but one needs to start living
healthy in their 30’s, not their 60’s or 70’s. And whether we like it or not,
genetics is a real thing. I worked in a medical genetics’ lab in New York City
for a couple of years doing chromosome studies from blood and bone marrow. One
of the tests run on those strands of DNA we carry in every cell is florescent
banding for certain diseases and disorders. If there is a family history of
something that can be handed down from generation to generation, it often shows
up as a band on a particular chromosome. Sometimes, those inherited
predispositions never become active, but sometimes they are activated by other ailments,
viruses for instance. Bottom line is, we
all carry the family history right in our cells. And at some point, those will
likely come into play—even when we do everything right. We can beat ourselves
up (and add to our stress) over our failure to “live right,” or we can deal
with our problems when they arise.
What
May wants us to know is that even winter has its blessings. If we can put our
judgements aside, we may realize that many of our aches and pains are the
result of living so long—decades longer than past generations. There is
evidence that our cave-dwelling ancestors had arthritis that distorted their
bones in their 20’s and were elderly by their 30’s. That is, if they weren’t eaten
as children by something bigger and meaner than they were.
Winter
may come around at any age—difficult times are not respecters of youth. It has
to do, as everything does, with energy—there is summer energy, and there is
winter energy, and they are different. Spring and fall are the “threshold” seasons.
Right now, collectively, we’re entering
winter—the trees are drawing in their sap and leaves are falling. (Did you know
that’s called abscission? There’s a lot of interesting science in this little
book.) But as May points out, the buds of next year’s blooms and leaves are already
on the trees—little nubs, scaled over to protect them from cold and insects. In
fact, most insects are finding their winter burrows under the bark and will
sleep until spring.
If you
are wintering now, know that it’s transitory—it’s one stage in life and if you
can see it as that, you know that spring is in the bud, and in the earth, and
in you. It will come in due time. For right now—rest, retreat when you can, and
give thanks for life and breath and the sacredness of simply being here.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment