The Quiet of a Winter Soul

Winter is a time of stripping down to our barest selves; a time to choose to see the beauty in what seems barren. The cold invites the opportunity to embrace the early dark with candlelight and a timely book. The new year renews a passion for self-growth when outside life lies dormant. Winter exposes. It invites us to breath deep and quiets our soul that we might explore the raw, tender places of our truest self. It is a season of vulnerability.

 

As a mother of three young girls, quiet is difficult to find, time alone elusive. Yet when the desperately desired still would come, I found myself filling it with static. A Netflix binge, countless minutes perusing Instagram, busying my hands folding the unending pile of laundry. Whatever the task, I was hiding. I began to sift through the layers of excuses. I deserve the break. Can’t I just check out after hours of engagement? This needs to get done now. No energy remains to read or do something that feeds my soul. Strip away the layers, and I discovered I was lonely. I was empty. The static offered distraction but little solace. Truth be told, I had forgotten how to be alone. I had forgotten how to be still. Rather than fill my soul, I filled the silence.

Instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops, there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.     -Gift From the Sea

 

Stepping away from social media, taking the TV out of the bedroom, making spaces of beauty to simply reflect and practice stillness: all of these were first steps in regaining the quiet my soul so desperately craved. I had to convince myself that an hour of solitude was a reasonable ambition in order to actual seek and obtain it. As mothers, as women, we get lost amidst the chaos, the busyness, the noise of our every day lives. Yet I am finding with each static-filled day, my soul withers. The withered soul of a woman leaves a story of beauty untold. Beauty the current world is longing to experience; a source of comfort and life in a time of winter.

We named our middle daughter Willow Eve, proclaiming she will be a tree of life that will not yield to the elements, declaring she will bend yet not break. A willow tree can be a rich source of life and wonder but only if they remain planted beside a source of water. Static dehydrates. We cannot weather the chaos of the day and become a source of life to those around us without quieting our souls and planting our roots in a spring of life greater than ourselves.

We are aware of our hungers and needs, but still ignorant of what will satisfy them. With our garnered free time, we are more apt to drain our creative springs than to refill them…not knowing how to feed the spirit, we try to muffle its demands in distractions.     -Gift from the Sea

What are your distractions? How is your soul withering? Where are the raw, tender places you need to explore and heal? How can you return to a quiet soul and access an inner spring that satisfies?

I am learning to quiet my soul, to invite the clarity winter brings. I ask questions to safeguard the inner spring from the invasion of dehydrating static. Does the noise I am inviting enhance the present moment? Am I exchanging the generation of a thought, an idea, a thing of beauty for a mere distraction? Am I depriving those around me from the life I could offer if I only I would silence the noise?

My voice matters. Your voice matters, women. Whatever lies or static is convincing you otherwise, strip it away. Let winter prune the places stifling your beauty. Gain clarity and then move into spring. The world is longing for your beauty. It is desperate for your voice.