Winter

And again, on a wintry morning, from Parker Palmer's book on vocation - Let your Life Speak:

Winter has an even greater gift to give. It comes when the sky is clear, the sun is brilliant, the trees are bare, and the first snow is yet to come. It is the gift of utter clarity. In winter, one can walk into woods that had been opaque with summer growth only a few months earlier and see the trees clearly, singly and together, and see the ground they had been rooted in. ... Until we walk boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them - protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance - we can learn what they have to teach us. Then we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all.

May we all see clearly in this most demanding of all seasons.