I’ve lived in the Northland for quite a while now. Every year at this time I start to feel as adrift as the leaves in the breeze. I have had a hard time reconciling the need to live where the visible manifestation of winter lives. Forced to watch the world die around me, leaves turning brown covering the ground, the birds heading off, the lines of geese moving away as they fly across the sky, and then the first sprinkling of snow. All the necessary signs of the time. We are Falling into winter.

The heaviness of Fall was no friend of mine, no matter the amount of pumpkin lattes. Why are you people Falling …RUN

Living in the dense area that I do, the heaviness of my natural environment reflects the mood of fall. The leaves now off the trees, we turn our eyes to the ground for the next few months. Rather than eyes to the sky, one must watch where they are walking, and more carefully where they are driving, because soon, we will be wading through many feet of snow, freezing our asses off. So eyes to the ground and make the bottom of yourself heavy too. Heavy shoes, heavy coat, heavy clouds, heavy snow, heavy hearts, heavy lives.

And like bears, we stumble in the dark until we find our caves and start the long winter walk…or sleep. UGGGGGGG, for me a rough place to live.

Like they say, (got to love they) the lessons we need will be found in the struggles we meet.

At first I really hated the northland and for so many years, all that dark, all the solitary living, bodies hiding under layers of wool and fashion eaten by gigantic coats. Everything was made difficult by degrees below zero and snow measured in feet. Compared to the tropics where one is always on display, like a chameleon constantly made to change colors, winds that move beaches and rain the fills ditches, everything is on display and sometimes very dramatically.

That’s where I was raised, in tropical Florida, land of parties and beaches not to mention skimpy clothing with late night revelry. Soul work what’s soul work, is it a bar? no wait a gym?…Living in a completely surface manner was the way of the day. I hear they say something similar about California.

But now after so many years in the northland I have learned to enjoy how this area forces me back into my home by Falls falling light. When the outside gets hostile here and it does for a while, the house becomes your best friend, while the storms rage outside the fire burns inside. It’s cozy and intimate.

Maybe it’s my age but being able to hide behind a coat, being softer with myself, staying home “because of the weather”, has become gold to me. The time to simmer soup is also time to simmer the soul. When my peripheral vision gets to crowded my thoughts move away from my depths. To mine the depths of my being I have found silence and the shadowed light of night in this solitary place where can I feel comfortable revealing myself to myself.

And in the spring I will be able to sprout new ideas and reclaim my renewed body and start the journey of sharing wisdom all over again.