Articles
The
Winter Heart . . .
By:
Carol C. Craven, M.S., LPC
Winter’s
heart waits, reflects, and dreams. It prepares for Spring’s changes.
What will you create for your heart’s changes this season? In the
book, The Heart has Its Seasons, Savary and O’Connor (1973)
tell us that even while “nibbling toasted marshmallows and sipping
mulled wine we stop for a moment and wonder where we are going” (p.
3). While watching “dancing flames” even broken hearts can be
seared, or even singed with hopeful feelings.
The
winter season is alive with burning embers ready to burst into flames,
snapping and crackling beneath the surface. What are your embers? How
will you fan the fires of change? “The heart in winter knows the
aloneness of freedom and the need to believe in something beyond
itself. . . . The heart in winter longs to be born again. It wants to
break out of the grip of guilt and raise its consciousness to new
awareness. It wants to shift its viewpoint toward the higher hills,
test new ideas, and make plans for the future” (p. 4).
Holiday
decorations are put away for another year. The house has a less
festive feel. New Year’s esolutions are either started or discarded.
That may be the moment of revelation. Or, you might find solace in
coffee after dinner, or watching a glowing fire on a winter night
This
surprising moment of quiet can become a time of creative awareness: an
energy that may change your life’s direction; a moment of unfolding;
moving from an idea to an action. Action may send you to a classroom,
to a new book, to a new hobby, or to a deeper relationship. Treasure
it. Let it enrich, deepen, and embrace you. When you see yourself in a
new way with the possible potential your heart can fill up with hope
for the future.
Rollo
May suggests in his book, The Courage to Create, that winter is
a time of opportunity. “Creativity, as Webster’s rightly
indicates, is basically the process of making, of bringing into
being” (p. 40). Moments of stillness provide a time of new
direction. They are moments of creativity. The creative process is an
encounter with your world. It may look like child’s play. It may
include a heightened awareness that involves a step toward change. The
result is a new stance toward life. You can choose your stance by
changing your own winter world.
Resources: Link, M. (1972). In the Stillness is the Dancing.
Niles, Illinois: Argus Communications.
May,
R. (1975). The Courage to Create. New York: Norton and Company.
Savary,
L.M., and O’Connor T.J. (1973) The heart has its seasons:
Reflections on the human condition. New York: Regina Press.
