It is winter. I’ve taken down the Christmas lights and am left with the sinking feeling that there’s nothing left to look forward to until the daffodils. I hate being cold…and seemingly I always feel so in this season. The days of low and gray skies hang heavy. Wind from the north adds further insult. We hope for the frivolity of snow, yet here in the south the wish is fleeting, and what comes short lived. Recently, I declared that there’s going to come a time when I’m moving to a place I’ll never be cold again. Moments after these words took form, I recognized a parallel meaning. I understood I was saying, “Someday I’ll go to a place where I’ll never be uncomfortable again.” I then heard a universal resonation. Most of us, if we had our way, would never experience another moment of life’s emotional pain and discomfort. We believe that there are people living in an emotional Caribbean, where life is giving them perpetually warm days and sunny skies. The idea of living “the good life” is a misnomer. It is an impossibility due to the fact that humans are a part of the cycles of nature and the universe. Throughout our lives we are continually going through seasonal cycles of ebbing and flowing energy. Our emotional winter is a time when our external energy comes to what might look like death. As a tree in winter, experiences come that strip us of assumptions and challenge our beliefs. Once our foundational ideas of truth are taken, we feel the pain and vulnerability of laying barren. Yet, under the surface we are experiencing incredible movements of redevelopment and growth. As with nature, the cycle of the seasons ensures germination, growth and rejuvenation. Death is an imperative process that can’t be avoided. Even in the consistent warmth of the rainforest, huge trees must die and fall, creating the pockets of light needed to bring new seedlings out of their dormancy. While I can move to warmer environs, I will never escape the energetic seasonal cycles that will come throughout my life. Our journey is not to deny or resist nature’s ebb and flow, but to embrace them and allow these breathes of energy to take us into spiritual territory unimagined.
Within the universe, it is impossible for energy to be ever expansive. As with the oceans’ tides, energy breathes. Everything around us ebbs and flows. While we feel natural disasters and forest fires are tragedies, they are actually imperative to the balance of the ecosystem and planet. In our universe, there are lunar cycles and even the death of suns. Even though we see nature’s cycles all around us, we somehow disassociate from being a part of this ecosystem. The cells in our bodies are constantly dying and regenerating. In our lives we experience ebbs and flows of energy constantly. We all know the saying, “When it rains it pours.” Our social lives run hot and cold. In business, we experience abundance and scarcity. The flow of our money expands and retracts. When these fluctuations of energy remain on a superficial level, we accept them as a part of life.
Winter death pockets are much more intense and feel as though everything we know to be secure is being taken from us. These are the times of our lives we believe shouldn’t be happening. An emotional death retraction may trigger job loss, betrayal, abandonment, accident, death, health diagnosis, or financial crisis. We’ve all experienced times when it just feels as though the bottom is falling out. In these pockets of deep ebbing, we are faced with the darkest corners of our ego, which tells us that we’re unlovable, undeserving, and hopeless. In the meat of it, we wonder if life will ever be the same.
It’s hard to recognize these life lows as a form of cyclical death because our culture is one that does everything in its power to deny death. While many of us will say we believe in life after death, when pressed to elaborate there is usually no substance or foundation. Our faith is blind, and we claim belief rather than feel the terror in the idea of literally disappearing. Our fear of emotional death is also based on a loss of existence. Instead of identifying ourselves as spirit, we identify ourselves in labels such as “computer analyst”, “wife”, “beautiful”, “successful”, “popular”, and “competent.” We also identify ourselves as “depressed”, “victim”, “loser”, and “powerless.” During our emotional winter these labels are challenged or stripped. The beliefs about ourselves have been with us since childhood and without them we fear nothing lies below. And although you’d think we’d love to have the negative labels taken from us, it is just as terrifying as losing the positive. We’d rather be something negative than nothing at all. Many people describe their fear of surrendering to death as falling into a bottomless chasm.
The other terrifying aspect of dying is wondering if anyone will be with us on the other side. If we get divorced, move to a less prestigious neighborhood, or receive unemployment, we know people will abandon us. While we acknowledge that the friendships we lose during hard times must have had little value, we would rather have somebody than nobody. Without the belief in our rebirth, we don’t have faith in those who are meant to come as more valued replacements.
The cycle of death also brings a torrent of chaos. In a divorce our homes, child custody, friends and belongings are all tossed into the air. With a job loss there is chaos in our financial security, possible relocation, and professional identification. When given a serious diagnosis we feel betrayed of our bodies, enter a medical world of decisions and lose confidence in our future. In death, everything comes undone. All of our chips are thrown into the air and we gasp in despair as we wonder where they will all land.
The best way to conquer the fear of death is to look right into its eye. When I look into death I see pitch black darkness devoid of any type of existence. Death is nothingness. I believe through avoidant glances we all see these qualities. But when I bore into the death void more deeply…down through the core of it…I see light. I hear a universal cliché, “There is light at the end of the tunnel.” When people have near death experiences they report going through a dark tunnel into the light. As it is impossible for energy to be all expansive, it also can’t be ever retracting. Death is a dark tunnel that is a portal into greater life. Life needs death, and death needs life. In winter, dead leaves enrich the soil for flowers and trees that are destined to grow in spring. While these cold months seem devoid of activity, within the dormancy there is deep regeneration. When I look into the dark, I recognize the incredible spiritual activity that is going on below the surface during these times. The idea that death is nothingness is challenged.
As I’ve stared into the spiritual cycles of death I have found an important differential factor to that of nature. While there is an eonic evolution to our planet, what I primarily see is earth’s effort to remain balanced. The purpose of our spiritual cycles is not just to gain balance, but to evolve forward. Through the chaos we desperately question who we are, what is life’s purpose, what is important, what is our value, what is love, and who we are. And with each energetic death, we are to wake up and remember the answers to these questions. By riding the chaotic rapids to the best of our spiritual ability, we can allow the trajectory of ebbing to shoot us forward into our enlightenment. Despite the turmoil and disarray experienced, we should come to recognize the power within torrent. Our spiritual cycles should spiral us upward into greater realms of peace, wisdom and core strength. With a clarity of spirit, when external energy expands again we’ll be able to manifest in ways we hadn’t before.
The reality is that due our fears of death, most of us greet receding energy with panic and resistance, which leads to unnecessary pain and spiritual looping. The circumstances of the energy ebb are challenging enough. When we go into thoughts of being punished or cursed, we add hopelessness and the powerlessness of victimization. Dogged denial and clinging to an already dead profession, marriage, financial status or relationship causes incredible amounts of stress. Fighting against raging currents takes unspeakable energy and despite our efforts we can’t change the truth of reality. And in order to hang onto what has passed, we must also hang onto beliefs that we aren’t competent, loveable, worthy, deserving….enough. Through the clinging we disenable our spiritual evolution. Since it is impossible for energy to indefinitely retract, no matter how hard we have fought, it will begin to flow again. When it does, we’ll be right where we started or a few steps spiritually behind. Additionally we’ll feel battered, exhausted and bruised. Since no one wants to acknowledge that they’ve wasted all that energy to no avail, we kid ourselves into believing we’ve grown. The new job, friends, relationships, homes, marriages…we attract will all seem like new. However, in time we discover that we’ve repeated a pattern and attracted a different flavor of the same old dynamic. Additionally, like society’s disenabling of natural forest fires, underbrush dangerously accumulates, which can lead to larger more explosive fires in the future. We are incarnated in order to grow and evolve…and the universe will do all in its power to help us fulfill that manifest.
Despite the fact that we all have spent decade(s) looping, our power to embrace the change in our lives can happen right now. When the phone stops ringing in our social lives, instead of fearing people no longer like us, we can look to see what we’ve neglected in busier times. When our business recedes, instead of panicking, we can take care of what has back logged behind the scenes – which might be fresh marketing ideas. Usually we can instinctually feel when external energy starts slowly receding. We can recognize it and acknowledge that it is time for an internal growth pocket. When the bigger wave(s) hits, we can embrace the feeling of fear, depression, confusion and grief that will naturally be a part of the process. However, having complete trust that we are being carried into wisdom, we can let go of hopelessness and victimization. Immediately we want to begin looking for the lessons we are meant to learn. With an intention of acceptance and growth, we will be presented with all the resources we will need for expansive clarity. Through consciousness, our heads will remain above the water line.
In the bitter cold this winter, I have begun to regard this season with greater respect. While most everything around me appears dead, I understand that nature’s energy has merely turned inward. A few inches under ground my daffodil bulbs are absorbing the cold which triggers cells that will begin to make new leaves and flower buds. Roots are forming inside the bulb which are imperative for spring blooming. Buds and leaves don’t form out of nothing. They grow from the cellular activity going on within the twigs during nature’s harshest conditions. Despite this newly founded regard for the cold, I’ll still most likely become a snow bird some day. In the meantime, I grow in my patience for spring and focus on where energy can be expended inside. Spring’s rebirth is on the way. And surely the colder the winter, the greater our gratitude when those gorgeous and vibrant daffodils signal that nature’s resurrection has come.