The long stare

"I recovered my tenderness by long looking." Theodore Roethke

Christmas is done. Every year when the last of the festivities are over, I sense a bit of release. When my children were small, I always thought the day after, 'boxing day' was the best part of the whole season. The house was quiet, we were all home and finally having time to be together with no place to go. The boys would be playing with their new toys after a leisurely breakfast, there was time for that extra cup of coffee. We rested.

Since New Years, North Georgia has been getting some much needed rain. It has rained so much the lake has turned a pale peach color from the stream and bank runoff. The temperatures are unseasonably warm. It feels as if the heavens are releasing all the last bits of emotion and undone things from last year.

As I pack away Christmas, I am already thinking about what I will put out next. The house always has such an empty, spare feeling when the tree comes down. I think it will be large pots of moss from the woods and some of the sprouting acorns and maybe a few bulbs. Winter is the time of gestation in nature. There is an outward resting which reflects our human need to recoup from the energy spent on the holidays. But like our inner lives, it is also the time that nature is at work sending down deeper roots and storing up energy in anticipation of spring. A time to reflect and ponder and sort.

The older I get, the more I feel that some of the juicest bits of life are found in the sorting. When we take time to wonder about what is happening in our lives, where we are going, who we are going with or without, what our hearts feel like, we are experiencing life in one of it's fullest dimensions. So much of our culture works against this processing, but it is still available to everyone. I like to call it 'practicing the long stare'. It's the time we spend simply letting our gaze wander while we look inward and think and sort and feel. There is a release from the pressure of everyday living that occurs when we do this. It somehow fortifies us even though we may not be able to come to any real conclusions or decisions. The very act of tending appears to have a measure of renewal built into it.

Happy New Year friends. There is much in this world to be frightened about, but there is also so very much more to be grateful for and blessed by...beginning with the rain.