Winter is a three-month period of time that represents a pause in the activity of life. Great lakes, ponds, and streams freeze over; the earth grows hard and unreceptive. Tree sap stops flowing. Even the air becomes dense, slow to move, and heat stealing. Yet, not everything is as it appears to be!
The pervasive stillness and deep silence of winter are powers every bit as great as are the explosive forces of spring and summer, only different. After all, what is a glacier but a vast frozen river crawling its way through time? Both are forms of water whose unstoppable might can carve their way through solid rock! So, how can we channel this power of winter and use it to let go of whatever stands between us and the higher life we desire?
Winter is the time of the year when the forces of nature assume their most passive form. But we are discovering here that passive does not mean powerless! Consider the micro-pause between each beat of the heart. Is the heart less alive, made less potent for the brief rest it takes in its own beating? Of course not! In each such moment of its repose we could just as easily say that it is gathering itself for its next pulsation. In other words, its temporary passive state is actually a measured act of preparation. So it is with the "heart" of winter.
The better we understand this unique power of being passive--and how it serves as the secret consort of all things active--the more we grow in the faith we need to be wisely passive toward whatever fears remain in us about letting go of our false self. This is why, during the dark days of winter, we should take time each day--as often as possible--to quietly return to the living Light that dwells in the center of ourselves.
By gathering our attention in this way, and bringing the whole of ourselves into the heart of this interior stillness, we not only collect our own forces, as nature herself is doing, but much more: in this deliberate act of gathering ourselves--and for the conscious sense of quiet contentment we find within it--we are also being released from the false idea that the source of our strength and security can be found somewhere outside us.
The great French author, philosopher, and Nobel Prize winner, Albert Camus, knew the power of this truth now revealed. He also realized its liberating potential. In the following carefully chosen words, see how beautifully he tells us not to fear any season of life wherein we find ourselves feeling empty, alone, or without any Light in our life. He writes: "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer."
Once we start to see, to know in our innermost heart, that life itself is already complete, we can let go of whatever--or whoever--would have us believe otherwise.
Old attachments and their long-standing aches are now seen for being what they have always been: appendages of days gone by, worthless to the Higher Self we have agreed to become and by whose stillness we realize this need for a wholly new valuation of our own soul.
Now is the season to die to discontent, to withdraw our consent to live with any thoughts or feelings that would convince us it's necessary to live in conflict or confusion.
The winter season can be the most challenging in terms of learning to channel its powers to help us let go. But, we may also have this timeless assurance: we are really created to enter into the perfect stillness from which we came. And for our return home--by entering into the bare infinity that is the center of our True Self--we arrive where we have always longed to be ... without ever having had to set out. Here we make this last, glad discovery: the task of letting go, of separating ourselves from who and what we need no longer be, has already been done for us.
Excerpted from "365 Days to Let Go: Daily Insights to Change Your Life"
Guy Finley is the bestselling author of The Secret of Letting Go, The Secret of Your Immortal Self, and 40 other works that have sold over two million copies in 24 languages worldwide. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. For more information and to receive a free starter kit and free weekly inspirational messages by email, visit www.guyfinley.org.