TEVET MORE THAN HUMAN WORLD 1
EARLY WINTER. December-January. Visioning month.
The stillness of early winter has settled in. The earth is just quieter as everyone moves around less in the short and cold days. All beings have clear strategies for how to get out of the wind and the sleet and the snow that is coming. Maybe it will be a gentle winter and maybe it won’t; I don’t know if the other beings really know but if you aren’t as prepared as you can be, you are going to be in trouble if you get caught flat footed.
The utter lack of leaves and the stillness of the air lets us see and hear things that otherwise we could not see or hear. This is part of why this time of year has long been seen as a time of visioning. In this too human world, I can now see and hear an apartment complex. But I can also hear the squirrels racing up and down the trees with a sharpness that was muffled a mere few months ago.
For our ancestors who lived in continental climates, the wood would be cut and stored, the root cellar would be full with root crops such as potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips and those kinds of fruit that stored such as apples and winter squash. There would be beans that would cook over the fire and corn for humans and later on for animals. We harvested and ate the last of the bok choi yesterday and the chard is not far behind. That leaves only the kale and the carrots that I am storing in the ground until or unless it freezes hard.
There’s not much to do outside. Feed the animals and milk them if you have milk animals. A friend who had a grass based dairy dried off everyone at this time of year so all he had to do was feed. Hopefully you have them on a pasture that needs the extra manure. Break the ice on the water trough if you don’t have them drinking out of a creek that runs year round. Make sure they have access to shelter from the winds—this is the time of the year when you want them to have access to woods if they are large enough, or four walls if you are raising chickens. The world is brown and grey, the color of the coats of the deer who have adopted so well to the suburban world in which many of us live. The deer too are quiet, sleeping later, moving languidly. The world is, at least, semi hibernating.
We’re often taught that winter is a time to look inward and uncover our visions. And it is true that we can see further because the trees have lost their leaves. The work of the year is done. It is the time for us to listen to stories.
QUESTIONS
What stories do you need to tell around the fire?
What stories do you need to hear around the fire?
What aspects of darkness do you need to sit with more?
Where do you need to be silent and wait for revelation in your life?
