Cheerful Creation 3/12/09

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus
**************
Greetings invisible friend.
----------------------------
I used to live in the up country of northern New England. The summers there were hot and filled with foliage of all kinds. The mountains.were wrapped in green forests and up above the bright sun would light up the summits. Down below the grass, the bushes, wild things, fields of vegetables and fruits, back yards of flowers were all, humbly or grandly reaching for the sky.

But the winter is an entirely different matter. People who live there know that in the summer and autumn they have to prepare for the winter. Have you got the wood in and the hay, is your furnace working properly, are the car and truck in good shape, is there a shovel in the back just in case, do you have the proper coats, boots, scarves, hats and mittens for your kids? Because when the winter comes, it comes in fierce and it doesn't go away. The snow piles up. Driving is treacherous. Everything freezes. Low lying unoccupied buildings simply disappear. Every day is cold. The evergreen branches are embraced by ice. It seems like the grand forests, the singing fields of corn and the joyous gardens were never there. As though it was all a dream.

But the people know it will be back and that you have to prepare for summer also. Leon Bibb has a song: "one day another spring." It sings about ancient fingers poking seeds into the earth. The "invincible summer" is coming, because it's always there in the hearts of us. The time always comes when the fields are once again filled with life.

There are winters everywhere. They may not last half a year as they do in some places, They may not be outside the door. They may be in the cold of grief and despair, poverty, confusion, disappointment, failure, fear, gloom and doubt. Those are winter winds that blow an angry message to the heart, ice storms we weren't prepared for.

I know what I'm writing about. And as impossible as it may seem, in the midst of winter, "in the depth of winter," caught in a storm of sorrow. is the time to start preparing for joy. Get the seeds ready because "one day another spring" and then "invincible summer," with forests of green, rivers fast and robust with the melting mountain snow, brave, small green things taking the place of the fields of ice, the reappearing happiness that was buried for a while and rejoicing, rejoicing, because that is what we are supposed to do.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
-------------------------
Now repeat after me:
Happy Birthday Vagabond