Sadness comes with snowfall, every year falling like flakes and settling on the earth. Some deep sorrow that stirs with the beauty and brutality of this season, and it’s been this way all my life. I see the stunning scenery, yes, I see the white blanket and am thankful for the months of safety from forest fire and drought, but winter has always carried a silent sadness that I cannot quite put my finger on. Each year it feels like a death, a passing of things that came before, of the person I was before, and it the long dark nights and deep coverings of snow feel like funeral, like burial of all that was. Perhaps those in other places in the world that do not experience a winter as harsh as we do avoid this feeling, perhaps those who experience even harsher winters feel it more, I am unclear. All I know, is for me it brings a strange gentle anguish that doesn’t wash out until the snow once again falls as rain.
Living in Southern California, I can count on one hand how many times I've seen snow, but I do feel this energy you speak of. & I can only imagine how beautiful, aching, and magnificent it would be to feel it with the snow fall.
I wonder if the sadness is because snow has a way of making all the sounds around us muted, less vibrant. It gently hushes the birds, tires on the road make a different sound and even the trees are muffled under their white cloaks. Sometimes I find this peaceful and nostalgic, like when huge fluffy flakes fall for hours and we watch from inside warm walls. Sometimes it comes with winter's fury, in blinding whiteness and howling wind. Sometimes it drops by silently in the night, and we wake to find the world blanketed while we slept, left for us to make a path before we can go on with our lives.
I find that I look at the stillness, darkness and slowing of life in general as a time to reboot, to reflect and rebuild for the new birth of spring....
I am from South Africa. I have never seen snow in my life. It does not get as cold here. But it gets cold enough for the grass to go dormant, everything turns brownish and the sun sets at 5:30pm instead of around 6:45pm. When the sun sets it is colder. I have fibromyalgia...and I hate winter... especially winter nights. Everything hurts a million times more. From June until August here I just focus on one thing: surviving until September. I feel that sadness too but suppose it is because my body becomes much more like a prison during that time. Its like an annual 3 month prison sentence...stuck in my own body. Luckily here...its just 3 months. Every day I think....is it over yet? Just ride the wave until it is over. So I dont think it is just the snow...I just call it the winter blues.
I feel this. ALL of this. I am in New England (CT) so we do have winter and the accompanying cold and snow and early darkness. It is not as harsh as where you are for sure - but the feelings are the same. Each year I try to find a way to embrace it, to find a way to appreciate it and maybe even enjoy it a bit. I have failed thus far. Maybe this is the year?
You just nailed it for lots of us. The time change messed me up this year and sit under a sun/heat light. Won’t burn or tan. I love sunshine. But yes! I started crying last night just because I was cold (bc 42 is so low). It gets dark early, it’s windy, I can’t leave the house as I have Walking pneumonia. But winters are always bad for me.
yeah, man, word, this one hits me. what if we lived in Hawaii or San Diego, would winter mean something different to us? do we need winter or have we gotten used to it? i am starting to understand that there is a beauty in pain, there is a beauty in anguish and sorrow. there is no beauty without pain.
I live in Hawaii, as someone previously speculated. Yes Hawaii is beautiful, and warm, in a way that sometimes feels surreal. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where snow was an occasional delightful surprise as a child. I long for the traditional seasons, and the smell of the evergreens. We have a rainy season, and even that brings a sense of home for me. I remember snow falling and making everything seem clean and fresh. I'll be back to that sooner than later, going home.
This is beautiful. Though where I live now in the UK we don’t have much snow...nonetheless this time of year still brings with it sorrow. For me it’s the stillness in nature, the muted colours, the bare trees and the morning chill and the dark, oh the dark. I try to remind myself that my own roots are still strong, just like those of the trees around me, that my branches are still there, though bare, and are merely hibernating for a season.
It is sown into us, somehow, this need to make others feel better, isn’t it? And in that, inadvertently, we tend to invalidate those emotions, be it grief, sadness, pain. We want to do good by others, but tend to make it about ourselves in the end. Can’t you hear us say: “Yes, but...”Trying to make you feel better, when in the end we’re coping with our own discomfort with the sadness. It all comes from a good place, though often misguided. So instead, let me say this: We hear you. That’s all. We are here. To listen. Also, I’ll leave a bit of old inspiration which has carried my tribe through this past year:
All Will Come Again
By: Rainer Maria Rilke
All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong and varied as the land.
Oh yes, this. I've lived in upstate NY for my entire life....and winter is a harsh time. I resonate so much with what you're observing here. I think a lot of it has to do with the way we no longer honor the seasons of the year.....the days get short and nothing about the expectations of our lives changes....we literally fight nature. In times past (agrarian/pre-industrial), people would change the way they live when the wheel of the year turned cold and dark. In truth, this is the time of death and living things going fallow or into hibernation. It's a time of restoration by a fire for warmth and nourishment with warm soups and stews, sleeping longer, cuddling tighter, and envisioning what will come to life in the spring when the days grow long again.
It's a highly sensitive nature that recognizes our modern way is out of sync with our inherent setting. So....now us an excellent time to burrow in, stay warm, and make plans for when the sun returns. Hang in there. These short, dark, cold days are just for now.....each Spring, flowers will bloom just as they usually do.
I feel this also and compared to your winters I have it easy, but I am for summer
It’s funny how your environment can change your feelings. As someone who lives in Florida and rarely gets to see snow, It actually brings me joy
Living in Southern California, I can count on one hand how many times I've seen snow, but I do feel this energy you speak of. & I can only imagine how beautiful, aching, and magnificent it would be to feel it with the snow fall.
I wonder if the sadness is because snow has a way of making all the sounds around us muted, less vibrant. It gently hushes the birds, tires on the road make a different sound and even the trees are muffled under their white cloaks. Sometimes I find this peaceful and nostalgic, like when huge fluffy flakes fall for hours and we watch from inside warm walls. Sometimes it comes with winter's fury, in blinding whiteness and howling wind. Sometimes it drops by silently in the night, and we wake to find the world blanketed while we slept, left for us to make a path before we can go on with our lives.
I find that I look at the stillness, darkness and slowing of life in general as a time to reboot, to reflect and rebuild for the new birth of spring....
I am from South Africa. I have never seen snow in my life. It does not get as cold here. But it gets cold enough for the grass to go dormant, everything turns brownish and the sun sets at 5:30pm instead of around 6:45pm. When the sun sets it is colder. I have fibromyalgia...and I hate winter... especially winter nights. Everything hurts a million times more. From June until August here I just focus on one thing: surviving until September. I feel that sadness too but suppose it is because my body becomes much more like a prison during that time. Its like an annual 3 month prison sentence...stuck in my own body. Luckily here...its just 3 months. Every day I think....is it over yet? Just ride the wave until it is over. So I dont think it is just the snow...I just call it the winter blues.
I feel this. ALL of this. I am in New England (CT) so we do have winter and the accompanying cold and snow and early darkness. It is not as harsh as where you are for sure - but the feelings are the same. Each year I try to find a way to embrace it, to find a way to appreciate it and maybe even enjoy it a bit. I have failed thus far. Maybe this is the year?
You just nailed it for lots of us. The time change messed me up this year and sit under a sun/heat light. Won’t burn or tan. I love sunshine. But yes! I started crying last night just because I was cold (bc 42 is so low). It gets dark early, it’s windy, I can’t leave the house as I have Walking pneumonia. But winters are always bad for me.
yeah, man, word, this one hits me. what if we lived in Hawaii or San Diego, would winter mean something different to us? do we need winter or have we gotten used to it? i am starting to understand that there is a beauty in pain, there is a beauty in anguish and sorrow. there is no beauty without pain.
I live in Hawaii, as someone previously speculated. Yes Hawaii is beautiful, and warm, in a way that sometimes feels surreal. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where snow was an occasional delightful surprise as a child. I long for the traditional seasons, and the smell of the evergreens. We have a rainy season, and even that brings a sense of home for me. I remember snow falling and making everything seem clean and fresh. I'll be back to that sooner than later, going home.
This is beautiful. Though where I live now in the UK we don’t have much snow...nonetheless this time of year still brings with it sorrow. For me it’s the stillness in nature, the muted colours, the bare trees and the morning chill and the dark, oh the dark. I try to remind myself that my own roots are still strong, just like those of the trees around me, that my branches are still there, though bare, and are merely hibernating for a season.
It is sown into us, somehow, this need to make others feel better, isn’t it? And in that, inadvertently, we tend to invalidate those emotions, be it grief, sadness, pain. We want to do good by others, but tend to make it about ourselves in the end. Can’t you hear us say: “Yes, but...”Trying to make you feel better, when in the end we’re coping with our own discomfort with the sadness. It all comes from a good place, though often misguided. So instead, let me say this: We hear you. That’s all. We are here. To listen. Also, I’ll leave a bit of old inspiration which has carried my tribe through this past year:
All Will Come Again
By: Rainer Maria Rilke
All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong and varied as the land.
And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
The houses welcoming all who knock
and a sense of boundless offering
in all relations, and in you and me.
No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.
Oh yes, this. I've lived in upstate NY for my entire life....and winter is a harsh time. I resonate so much with what you're observing here. I think a lot of it has to do with the way we no longer honor the seasons of the year.....the days get short and nothing about the expectations of our lives changes....we literally fight nature. In times past (agrarian/pre-industrial), people would change the way they live when the wheel of the year turned cold and dark. In truth, this is the time of death and living things going fallow or into hibernation. It's a time of restoration by a fire for warmth and nourishment with warm soups and stews, sleeping longer, cuddling tighter, and envisioning what will come to life in the spring when the days grow long again.
It's a highly sensitive nature that recognizes our modern way is out of sync with our inherent setting. So....now us an excellent time to burrow in, stay warm, and make plans for when the sun returns. Hang in there. These short, dark, cold days are just for now.....each Spring, flowers will bloom just as they usually do.