The Free Radical

The Spirit of Winter will not easily release its tenacious grip! Daily, Winter’s ministrations seem to plunge us deeper and deeper into the debts and depths of uncontrollable folly. The cold and the unrelenting snow appears as something happening to us.

And now I feel that I’m standing in a strange moment of discontinuity. And in this untenable place, I will admit that I am currently writing from a place of duty and obligation, more so than from true inspiration. Past pursuits are unable to hold much interest. Between the known past and the uncharted future, something monumental– yet fluid– has shifted. The winds of change have no regard for yesterday; they are not pushed from atmospheric pressures; no, they are pulled from distant yearning.

Here are we marooned on the old familiar path obliterated. We had set our course assuredly just the day before, but it has been erased again as though never had it been. Like I said, a strange discontinuity.

Drifts of snow challenge us, asking “What is the true ground of your conditioned being?” The answer is a whisper aspiring to a shout “Passivity!” We are deeply conditioned to do nothing, to wait out our own frustrations and our fears. As long as we don’t ever become proactive and creative with our seeming lot, we can remain acceptable to the status quo. The long dark teatime of our souls may continue on indefinitely…

In this pause, we are making room. Snow is a metaphor for our souls descending. The cold calculation of tomorrow’s shocking embrace is settling into our bodies now. We are becoming inspirited into the flesh; horizons of new inspiration await our first tentative footsteps… not this mere trudging through the snow.

The sun shines from your own breast! Truly. Kindle it. Warm yourselves. Our spirits have always huddled together… coordinating this grand pageant in which we’re just now learning to finally act! Embrace the discontinuity; touch tomorrow with warming smiles… just another mile to go…