Winter Solstice

Sometimes, usually on days that are very cold or when a storm is threatening, the birds and animals hide themselves, and the woods go very still. That’s when the spirits come out. They’re not bold. They reveal themselves in brief glimpses—a shadow that appears for a moment, or a fleeting image that forms on the ragged bark of a tree. When I was a little girl I used to pursue the spirits and try to capture them in my sight, but it never worked and I learned to let them be.

When I got a little older I began to fret about whether they were real or just something I imagined. Eventually I came to understand that my question was a mistake, the result of my training in how to chop the world into pieces. Growing up, for most of us, means forgetting how to see the world whole. My Yuletide wish is that we seek to remember.


Waldlandschaft im Winter, Conrad Alexander Müller-Kurzwelly (1855-1914)