Like a Zen sand painting, destined to disappear, a work of art glistens in the light of the sun as it rises over the eastern hills, its light revealing the scene so delicately etched on my window. And it’s not enough that the frost sculpted crystalline flowers and branches; it’s made a shadow layer, too, a misty mountain, rising beyond this meadow, rainbow snow falling on its slopes.
Behind the frost, a shadowed hillside draped in dawn’s blue and a matrix of tree limbs hang from a strange, foreign sky. Later, it will take on a magic of its own. But in this glistening moment it’s the frost that captivates and stuns me with its unexpected evanescent beauty.
Just when you thought another frozen day would do you in, January breathes a few degrees of warmth into the world, enough to heal you, enough to transform ice into water again.
It’s not the last of the arctic days. But it’s enough to let you relax, to loosen your tight shoulders, to walk without a hat if you want. Remember this when the next round comes.
Nothing lasts forever. Ice turns to water, then back again. It makes us strong. We get to practice our resilience, to practice ease with all that comes.
Long, long ago, in a world far away, I began my online writing career with a now-defunct site called The Magical Mirror Machine. It was a continuation of a paper newsletter that I sent to a list of people years before. The premise of the Magical Mirror Machine is that the world reflects back to us exactly who we are.
I remembered it this week when a bout of introspection got me to thinking about the way that we often criticize in others the very shortcomings that we’re most blind to in ourselves. If we paid attention to what the Magical Mirror was showing us, we’d have a good idea where we could use a course-correction ourselves.
Try it out. The next time you catch yourself criticizing somebody, think about what you want them to be that you believe they’re not being. Then ask yourself in what ways you are guilty of the same thing.
It can take a little digging. If you’re nagging your roommate because he always leaves his socks on the floor, the Mirror probably isn’t saying that you should be neater yourself. (Although that might be the message. Are you always leaving globs of toothpaste in the bathroom sink?) Instead, the Mirror is probably seeing through your surface complaint to a deeper issue.
It could be saying, for instance, that you wish your roommate would be more appreciative of the work you do to keep your environment clean and tidy. In other words, you want more appreciation for your contributions to the household. Hmmm. And just how appreciative are you of his contributions? When’s the last time you sincerely and specifically expressed your appreciation for the things that he does?
The way the Mirror works is that what you put out, it reflects back. If you want to get back something different, try putting it out. If you want to be listened to, listen more. If you want more affection, give more of it.
But don’t forget to look at the beauty that the Mirror shows you as well. When you’re keenly interested in something, the Mirror is hinting at one of your strengths. When you’re enjoying building something, it’s reflecting your creativity. When you notice how kind people are, it’s reflecting your own kindness. When you’re laughing, it’s showing you what you enjoy.
It’s these kinds of messages, the positive ones, that will tell you what will truly enrich your life. Notice when the Mirror is reflecting your best traits, and cultivate those. Learn what makes you happy, what touches your heart, what makes you feel strong and capable and confident, and make a point of doing more of those things.
We always get farther by cultivating our strengths than by trying to fix our weaknesses. And once you recognize what your strengths truly are, you can draw on them to guide you the next time the Mirror shows you a place that needs a little polishing.
The sound of the creek, filled by this midwinter thaw, triggers the fisherman’s dreams. He feels himself planted firmly in its waters, leaning into them as they rush past his hip-high boots. He can smell the boots. His muscles move in his sleep as he imagines casting his line into the wind, watching it fly through the wet air that tastes of spring and falling into the waters, upstream. And in his dream he calls to the trout and feels the tug on his line as one bites, and he reels it in, oblivious now to the cold waters, to their push against his legs. It is only him and the fish now and this singular joy. And the joy feeds him, and he wakes glad, even if spring is still ten weeks away.
Not all days are made for playing outside. Some days, if you have any sense at all, are better spent examining the stitching on the quilt, trying to decide whether the pink flowers or the blue ones are your favorites. If worse comes to worse, you could play Tease the Dog. But for my part, the quilt is the thing. Hide there. Grab a nap. Dream of sunshine. That’s the way, I say, to spend a winter day.
Shelter. It’s what they give; it’s what they do. Humans, birds, insects, fungi, squirrels. Who doesn’t matter at all. Only the need. Show them that and whatever they have is yours for the taking. Here, tuck yourself in, they say. Let me keep you from the storm.
I was sipping my first cup of morning coffee, watching the gentle flicker of the flames through the wood stove’s door, gazing out the window at the waltz of the spruce boughs and the snow. As usual, my thoughts drifted to my loved ones, my family, my close friends. A year ago, the soft realization came, this one’s husband was still here, this one’s son, this one’s long-time friend. May peace fill the emptiness that they left behind. I rose to take my empty cup (May they be comforted.) to the sink, and peering through the window above it saw, as if in a dream, a flock of mourning doves perched on the branches of a tree and the wire, motionless as the snow fell around them.
Imagine yourself in a land not all that far away, beneath wondrous clouds that wear, from time to time (depending on their moods and the singing of the sky) every color of the rainbow and some that even the rainbow hasn’t yet worn. And here, in this one special spot, almost exactly in the very middle of nowhere, magical wands rise from shimmering drifts of new-fallen snow that stretch to the most distant edge of the horizon. (You know, the edge that dreams float from at sunrise just before they melt into the sky.) And from this near-center of things, the wands beam waves of warmth and encouragement and sunlight to all the sleeping seeds who dream beneath the layers of the earth envisioning the forms they’ll wear when they dance in the soft winds of spring. And if you are very quiet as you walk here, in the snowy near-middle of nowhere, you can sense the going forth of the wands’ beams, and you just might feel their quickening touch whisper across some dream seeds of your own. You never know.
Even though this is my first Sunday Letter of the year, I’m happy to tell you that I have no intention of telling you how to make good resolutions or how to set goals.
But I do want to share with you a practice that has been especially helpful and meaningful to me for a few years now. I think of it as a kind of guiding light that shows me the way.
What I do is take some time at the year’s start to think about a quality I most want to develop or express in my life during the coming year, and then to pick a word or brief phrase to represent it – one that will act both as my reminder and my guiding light during the coming year.
You may have heard about this practice; it’s becoming more and more popular as people discover the power of it to keep themselves focused on an ideal that has genuine meaning for them.
To give you an idea of the kinds of things people pick, here are a few words-of-the-year that I’ve seen people adopt:
Productive
Learning
Healthy
Persistent
One Thing at a Time
Why Not!
Friendship
Loving-Kindness
Sobriety
Honest
Brave
Finishing
Fun
Grateful
Creative
Forgiving
Centered
At Ease
The phrase “Why not!” was my guiding phrase for the past year and it nudged me past the boundaries of my comfort zone, inviting me to try new experiences, and to be more confident and daring. It taught me to have faith in my ability to handle the unforeseen and to be more at ease about putting myself in unfamiliar circumstances.
I’m keeping my choice of a word private this year, but I can tell you that already it has begun to impact my life and to show up in surprising, interesting, and even humorous ways.
Choosing a guide word for the year ahead has been much more powerful for me, and easier, than making ponderous, almost guaranteed-to-fail resolutions. It has flexibility to it. It allows me complete freedom in choosing how to let its influence play out in my life.
To select a word or phrase to guide you through the year, think about what would enrich you the most, or what would bring you a heightened sense of well-being or mastery or satisfaction. You can think about what aspects of your life you’ve neglected, or about the kinds of things that would give you a good stretch, or provide the greatest sense of achievement, or fulfillment, or joy to your life.
That’s the biggest clue, by the way: pick something that makes you smile inside, something that says, “Yeah! I want of more of that!”
Don’t get all tangled up in having to choose the perfect word or phrase. Sometimes you don’t nail exactly what it is you were trying for with your first effort. But stick with whatever word or phrase you do choose for a couple weeks anyway. You’ve probably come close enough, and if a more precise word or phrase comes along, you can adopt it when it announces itself to you. Nobody’s watching or keeping score.
Once you’ve chosen a word or phrase, think of a way to remember it every day – jot it on your calendar, for example, or write it on your mirror or with invisible ink on the palm of your hand. Then play with it. Let it sing or chant itself in your mind. Remind yourself of it in the morning as you begin your day. As your day ends, look where it played out in your life, the ways it influenced your attitude or your choices. See what synchronicity it brings you. Notice the ways you noticed it. Think of it as an invisible friend traveling along with you as you go about your day, nudging you when choices and opportunities come along.
Think about it. See if a particular guide word or theme is calling to you. Keep listening as you go about your day. And when you hear it, tuck it in your memory. See how it plays out in your life.
It’s a lollapalooza of a practice.
Wishing you a superb week as you begin this New Year!
