Inhabit the pause

The light is the same all day. Whether dim and diffuse under a bed of cloud, or sparkling sharp and horizontal under a deep forgiveness of blue, the days are short and there is a sameness to their span.

I go looking for answers, something to make of this time where the things that once held us together seem to fall like afterthought through the branches.

What if the map is wrong, the road signs mistaken? What if the path we’re on leads only back and down, folding under its own burden, sighing back to a simplicity we thought was the beginning and not the end? What if it all ends here.

I struggle against decline. I want to put up a fight, I want the great animating flush of battle, to be lit with purpose.

January comes. I know it by the absence, the press of air, the space between things.

I ask, “Please. Show me something, give me something to know you by.”

I see a tall pine catching the long golden light on its pillar trunk, holding a fringe of needles up against the blue. Holding.

“Will you speak to me? Will you tell me what I want to know?”

Hush. It is too soon for that.

Too soon to muster the troops and rally into formation, too soon to make language of this, roadways, and plans, too soon to move into action, to make change happen. Too soon.

Hush. Be still. Wait.

The power of January is Trust. To rest the weight of yourself in the cradle of something bigger. To give over the reins. To know that there is more than you know. To welcome the unfolding in its own time.

Though I sense the calming depth of that surrender, I am fretful still. “What’s the good of it?” I ask.

You trade the confines of your own small vision for the vast. You become one with the way. The power is immense and flowing. It will carry you farther than you ever dreamed.

I see that this is true and good. I am not in charge here. There is no call to fight.

“Mighty January, what service may I offer you?”

Be still, smooth your ruffles, make yourself ready.

OOO