A season of subtle colours

Early winter in Scotland is a season with few bright and spectacular colours. Shades of grey frame the ubiquitous brown bracken under which the land sleeps. Early snows haven't yet developed the vivid sparkle that comes with greater depth and cold mornings and the lochs reflect the white and the greys in stillness or movement. Patches of green are also to be found along the path, and of course on the conifers scattered around and the black of the bark wet after the rain. Leached yellow grasses(that display no recollection of sunlight) on the upper slopes, awaiting the new life of spring. Greys, browns, faded greens and yellows and the scattered whites of early snow provide a pallet befitting this season of rest and loss.

Living with the seasons of our life and owning whichever season we are in can be tricky. If you are a sunny and relentlessly positive like me it can be difficult to admit it is winter. Not far from where this photograph was taken yesterday I said to Ina, "I am very good at living in denial and being positive" ...after 33 years together I wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know - she just burst out laughing and gave me a squeeze.

Yet winter has its' own beauty and as we stand at the start of what looks like another crazy year I was heartened by these great lines from Tish Harrison Warren. Beauty and wonder are not only comforting. They are also a high density dose of reality. The tenacity of glory and goodness, even in this shadowed world of tears, trains my eye to pay attention, to stay alert not only to the darkness of our story but to the light as well. Beauty comforts us in her wordless embrace and there is no place she doesn't go. There is no space on earth or sadness too deep that a verdant sprig of glory doesn't somehow crack through the sidewalk. In the times when we think anguish and dimness are all there is in the world, beauty is a reminder that there is more to our stories than sin, pain and death.

So may we all adjust our senses to be able to see the subtle beauty of winter both physically and metaphorically, to realise that loss is an inescapable part of our lives and that winter is the season for the distilling of our essence to what is truly meaningful to us. As we grieve and let go of many things hoped for may we discover in the solace of winter's embrace that our hopes are honoured and reshaped into something entirely different and unexpected. For us to receive such gifts however we may need to become different people, not in anyway by trying, but by simply giving ourselves over to the seasonality of our lives and allowing the turning world to bring us towards the sun once again.

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