Winter Fog

Sometimes the fog holds a certain darkish murk in its clammy clutches. Even so, I am drawn to wandering away from the warmth of the home and into the thick of it. Cutting a trail of light through the darkness makes me feel alive.

Grounded

Sometimes, when the things of this world feel sad and weighty and the very skin of the earth seems stretched and sagging and thin and tired and brittle and bustling with more unkind activity than it was ever designed to carry, I step outside to where green things are growing. I get myself inside some patch of earthy aliveness, and the earthy aliveness gets itself inside of me. I become in every sense, grounded.

I swallow the air and let the weather – regardless of the season – beat fully upon my face. Morning is my most cherished time. Because the earth seems freshest in the morning as it slowly rouses when the sun first begins stretching its arms across the dewy land. It has gotten some rest and relief during the night. Sometimes it appears as if it’s just me and the world in these very early hours- these very early hours when all things seem possible.

I walk through Spring fields as warm thick rain licks my cheeks the way sweet cream butter melts, rolls, slides- in small rivulets down fat yeasty rolls fresh out of the oven. My bare feet squish through soggy fields with grasses and mud sieving through my toes. The thirsty earth sucks up a million silvery liquid drops and is refreshed. And with it, I.

Under direct Summer sun my skin darkens and the heat of these long days pulls continuous sweat from my pores, leaving a salty residue stuck to my skin. My supple body relieves itself, sleekly slipping head long through the cool satin sheets of Lake Michigan. And here, all the heat and residue of my day gets washed away too.

When the sugar maples slowly fade from emerald to crimson to apricot to burnt sienna to fleetly floating downward- released by the grip of the trees and caught up in the swell and song of Autumn breezes -they slip and dip through cracks in the air currents and make their mosaic on the ground. Their earthy scent is taken into the far corners of my lungs as they float past my bundled up skin and I inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. The earth releases what is old here. And so do I.

Winter comes. Fat snowflakes drift down – tiny intricate works of art created for only this moment, for whomever happens to be paying attention. These glimmering masterpieces bury the brown lifeless edges of autumn. The snow is an oddly warm bed to lie in as I watch the flakes float down around me and over me, nibbling at my cheeks with a curious tenderness. The earth is bright, fresh, alert, crisp and silent. And I with it.

Here I am grounded, with roots that spiral deep into the earth, as the earth roots itself deep into me. And when I come away from here- full of this aliveness that has seeped into my skin, my bones and my tendons, that pumps through my heart and vessels and winds it’s way through the neurons of my brain- I must keep my eyes open to the realities of the world. I must remember that I am a rooted part of all this too – the messy and the beautiful parts. And I must remember that I am to be in the work of brightening and lifting up the sagging parts of the world, of being life and light to the sad parts, of strengthening the thin and brittle parts.

For such a time as this.