Find my thoughts focused on the shift in the weather. A step more solidly toward winter. (In meditation) I saw a blizzard. All white; all quiet. Felt the cold without and drew on the warmth within.

Slow. Need to slow down. So natural to draw within. Time to be with family, be inside our home, be inside our hearts. But it is difficult…drawing within for a solid length of time. Maybe because the work isn’t seen. The progress isn’t visible. The growth, the energy is in the roots, buried deep. It is easy to feel antsy after a time.

But there is so much work to be done within. I know this yet I rush it. Maybe it is that I never get to stay in the right space, the right mindset. Just so hurried this time of year, with so many events. Marketing gurus pushing us, racing us towards the next big spending frenzy. Turning the sacred internal experience into a flashy external circus. Doesn’t jive with the winter vibe. I lose the beat of the natural rhythm in the circus music and I jump ahead. But this time should be savored.

This year slow it down. Mustn’t rush the dark times. Unplug the stress machine. Simplicity. Simplify. Keeping practice is vital. If I can keep this rhythm despite the world’s clamoring, savoring moments will become secondhand nature. I will settle in to the slow dance, reconnect within… roots digging deeper, my heart more open, mind clearer, choices easier and love freer.

I strive to honor Winter this year. There is beauty in the cold; there is beauty in this darkness. An outward calm; an inward awakening. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.