Wisdom Words

These Gray Days in Seattle....

by Sara Tharrington of The Yoga Garden

    As I write this, the glowing half moon is grinning down from a dark January sky onto a sparkly dusting of snow. Not too many hours ago a cold rain pummeled the city and the clouds felt just a few feet over head. It was the kind of socked in day when you wonder about the time and pull your hood down low over your eyes. It could be 8:00 O’ clock in the morning or 4:00 O’ clock in the afternoon. It’s hard to say exactly. The landscape is a study in the subtleties of gray. I wonder why we don’t have more words for this kaleidoscope of monochrome.

    For some of us, this is the most challenging time of the year. We trudge from home to obligation to obligation to coffee shop and on and on, in our hearts and minds longing for some comfort, some downtime, some reprieve from the soggy, sky-free days. Combine this with all the bad news and pessimism we can access from any sort of screen or speaker, and we’ve got the perfect ingredients for a cocktail that at the least, serves up a really bad mood and at the worst, a spiral into depression.

    I’ve lived around the Seattle area for two thirds of my life and it still takes me by surprise; the lack of light in the winter, my decreasing enthusiasm for heading outside, my increasing enthusiasm for my bed and my couch, the slump in my productivity, the spike in my fantasies about living in places like Hawaii or the Rocky Mountains and the overall decline in my Pep. One thing I’ve come to understand is that a little of this is completely normal and necessary. It’s important and key to have some downtime. No seriously! It’s ok to take a nap or put your feet up and drink tea and read a book all afternoon. It’s ok and natural to not feel quite as energetic as you do in the spring and the summer. We are in the darker quieter days of winter after all. It’s the perfect time to become more reflective and introspective, to delve a little deeper into our soul. It’s the time to quiet down and listen for messages about our heart’s desires. It’s the opportunity to set intentions that we can nurture and cultivate throughout our next circle around the sun.

    It is also an excellent time to focus in on the beauty and the positive in our lives. This is the time when, more than ever, we should surround ourselves in beautiful music, inspiring art, bright and delicious health-giving food, the arms of someone we love and who loves us back, the softness of our cat’s fur and our dog’s wet kisses. This is the time to unplug from the bad news and plug into the change we can effect in the world that is happening right before us, at the grocery store, or the office, or even just walking down the street. We can smile at each other or hold the door. We can watch a neighbor’s kids so she can take a half an hour for herself. And while I may not personally be able to stop the war in Iraq or any number of the countless things that drive me to tears, I may be able to practice some small kindnesses like, delivering some food to the food-bank, asking a friend if she’s doing “ok” and then staying present for her answer, or picking up my neighbor’s recycling when it blows across the yard in the wind. Probably none of these things will ever dramatically change the world, but stuff like this does help to change our perspectives and also helps to remind us that we live in a beautiful world next to amazing people in communities that are worth fostering. Kind of like a little moonlight and snow can shift your perspective on an otherwise ordinary gray, Seattle day in January.

Updated: Thursday January 17, 2008

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