Wintering

Katherine May's wonderful book 'Wintering'is a treasure, a reminder that we all have dark hours and that we can embrace them, that they have something to teach us, to honor that time.

I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree

rustling over a gravesite

and making real the dream

of the one its living roots embrace:

a dream once lost

among the sorrows and songs.

Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)

See also The Marginalia on Wintering:

https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/03/06/wintering-katherine-may/