Winter

Photo by Haydon Waldek

Everything in nature has a set rhythm – times of activity (Spring, Fall) and times of dormancy (Winter, Summer). Humans also follow these rhythms: we spend a third of our lifespan sleeping, and almost another third engaged in seemingly unproductive tasks. To the naked eye it may appear during these periods that “nothing’s happening”. But like the roots of a tree under a heavy winter snow, important work is being done, though it remains hidden.

In fact, these times of winter are good and life-giving in their own way. Soil that is always planted becomes burnt out and unusable, it needs inactivity to be able to act. Through lying fallow and absorbing what is breaking down within it, the soil is refreshed. Decomposition – death – is ironically what restores the soil to life, making it vibrant again. This period of decomposition is an important building block for all that comes next. Only through a balanced cycle of sowing, reaping, and lying fallow is the process made sustainable.

But establishing this balance is not easy. As 21st century beings we are addicted to the harvest. We love reaping the fruits of our labors, and abhor the waiting it involves. Inactivity and lack of output can feel like a tiny death of sorts, a blank black spot in a world that demands we constantly keep it coming.

We devalue the dormant moments of life, while vastly overvaluing periods of activity. Accomplishments, progress, and action are what modern culture tells us give life meaning. We worship the moment an apple is ripe for the picking, while ignoring the reality that only the coldest, bleakest winters can produce such a tasty fruit.

As a person engaged in creative practices like writing, preaching, and comedy, there is an even greater temptation to crave the harvest. Achievements become tiny idols to worship in our hearts. For artists, our accolades must make us personally shine, only then can we be secure in a life and career well lived. It is incredibly difficult to accept a winter season in the creative process, to be ok with letting land lie fallow.

We often strain against it, try to grind it out. But like the process of a laboring birth, the harder you push the more painful it becomes. Creativity can’t be forced out, it has to flow in its own time. There are times that are fruitful and times that are fallow. In winter, we may look out and find there’s nothing to pick off the branches. It’s a rhythm that the very universe seems to acknowledge and endorse.

When fighting against these natural rhythms, the effects can be devastating. Relationships with family and community become strained; emotional, physical and spiritual health suffers; and a narrow view of creative success is embraced. We lose perspective: our work can become overridden by the demands of the market and commercial viability. The original seed of inspiration vanishes from the final outcome, as the fruit is picked prematurely from the branch, before its time had come.

Nothing in nature is constantly blooming. There’s always a period of bareness, a season of winter. We are subject to the same laws.

Are you ok with fallowness? When nothing appears on the tree, can you settle into a season of dormancy? It’s not just ‘taking a break’, it’s a tiny death. But paradoxically death is always the pathway back to life, and some of the most important work happens unseen, buried under a heavy winter snow.