My eyes scanned the sparkling, barren field, stopping over every wasted, sleeping tree. Their branches were bare to the cold caress of the wind and they shuddered in delight with each whispery zephyr that blew past. My lungs filled with the frigid air, each lungful puffing out to crystallize into a pretty sparkling cloud. I felt the cold brush of wind swirling with tiny snowflakes, perfect and graceful each separately unique, but all beautiful. I felt alive; I felt the warmth of my blood as it pounded from my heart to my extremities. An amorous flush adorned my face as my feet crunched quietly over iridescent snow.
My mind was clearer than it ever had been; my soul had been gifted with a pair of sparrow wings and had been freed from the constraints of my body. I could feel my soul coursing through and over the frosted ground, over the frozen land. There came a wonderful sense of freedom and peace that settled over my body and my mind. I was one with the land I was standing on, but unlike the icy plants and the sleeping trees I was neither asleep nor dormant. I was alive!
I have asked many people their favorite season and so few have ever said winter. They say it's too cold, too silent, too...dead. I however never thought of it as dead, I saw winter in a completely different light. I loved every minute of winter, watching the swirls of snowflakes, the landscape coated with layer upon layer of white, glistening icicles hanging from every surface casting mini rainbows whenever the weak sunlight ever passed through them.
In a world that is never quiet; cars honking, dogs howling, cats screaming, people shouting, sounds of humanity, parties, constant flashing lights, chaos, and stress, it was hard to ever find the peace that one feels when observing Mother Nature at her finest. For if spring was her promise, and Summer her pleasure, autumn her beauty, winter was her masterpiece.
Winter was a masterpiece because it was beautiful with its killer silence, glorious in its snow white purity. We all know how fickle Mother Nature can be. Whenever winter visits in her yearly cycle, I personally felt blessed. During those few cold months there was no large amount of birds; most had left for warmer skies. People were hiding in their snug homes, the animals were quietly sleeping. There was silence, the complete silence that is so quiet that human ears ring with it. The Earth seemed to have frozen silent. Mother Nature herself holding her warm breath; waiting for the heat to return from the sun.
Those were my most peaceful moments. The only few times when I felt nothing but my own heartbeat, and heard my own soft panting being expelled. My senses felt like they had grown, I could hear everything, smell anything, feel all around me. It was there when it happened... I felt my soul for the first time.
The closest I could truly come to describing it, and to do as much justice for it as possible was a delicate yet powerful feeling that danced in my heart and around my soul. It was more than the rigidness that invaded my body starting at my hands and feet. It was more chilling then the icy breezes that slithered up my spine. It was powerful then the hair-raising silence that scared people when there was absolutely nothing to hear. It was magical. It was beautiful. In that one moment all I wanted to do was to stay for the rest of my life, that one time when I was so in tune with the Earth that my very body felt the slight vibrations of burrowed animals. The nibbling of deer desperate enough to eat tree bark. The smooth gait of a fox as it sniffed for the breathing hare. I was Nature herself for just a split moment.
It is hard to find a peace like that, even when I was pulled back into the comfy warm house. My cheeks flushed and cold; my nose running and numb. Even when the stinging in my hands, indicated the return of feeling in the icy digits, I was entranced. Even when my mom smiled at me with that loving, motherly smile, knowing tomorrow I'd be too sick to move from my bed; I couldn't keep myself from the staring out through the frost-stained window panes. Staring out with a mesmerized expression at the swirling snow, and of course, that perfect quiet. I would sit there for hours curled up on the warmest heat register wrapped in a blanket around my slack shoulders, sipping slowly at a hot mug of steaming cocoa as it warmed my rouge colored hands. My mom would always say my face had a faraway expression, my eyes open and searching, but not seeing.
It was almost torture, growing up having felt that peace once, but not being able to have it when I needed it the most. I didn't want to be more bound to Mother Nature then I already was being a human at her mercy from the weather. I was so stressed that I didn't want to wait every year for Christmas break to be able to relax.
I tried everything, calming teas, yoga, breathing techniques, and mediation. I tried exercise, sports, poetry, reading, writing, napping and I came close at times, but I never quite found that peace of mind that I had once found so it all slipped away. I felt resigned at the time, I really was hoping I could find something easier to find that peace, but that is just the problem. Everything from our country is too easy.
Growing up I've noticed that every year the peace of winter lured me to it. I just wanted sometimes to fall asleep in the soft, lonely, frozen snow drifts. I almost wish I could, but the pleasure of living surpasses the urge for the peace. I like all seasons, I like sports, I like life in general, and I like reading, writing, poetry, and meditation. For all of these, life is far too precious to waste on a whim. I know personally, that nothing will compare to that wintry magical feeling, until I myself will be entering the winter of my life, but I am content to wait.
As life progresses farther ahead, rushing head-long to more technological devices, faster cars, faster... well everything. Everyone I know is stressed like a harp cord waiting for that one wrong note that will snap the cord that was too taut. With so much to do, on the run people flit about like hummingbirds or busy drone bees listening to their queen, working until their bodies can work no longer, then finding their peace in a casket.
People need to slow down, everything is on high-speed, like, someone hit a fast forward button and it became stuck. We have instant meals, dish satellites, digital cameras, cell phones, e-mail, and drive at high speed but in the end all arrive at the same place. Higher statistics of murder, violence, and more people turning to drugs immersing themselves in a pseudo-calm feeling. You can't grow peace or your happiness; you can't find it at the bottom of a bottle with your friends reeling around you. You can't mix your peace from a box, you can't fight your way in a video game to find it, you can't tape it off your T.V, and you can't find it in your checking account.
The most beautiful peace a person can find is standing still and enjoying your life. Sitting in on a park bench, listening to trees sway as their leaves rustle in a breeze. Inhaling the scent of flowers or listening to the choir of birds roosting in a gnarled tree. The peace of sitting on a sunny beach, feet buried in white sand in an isolated cove. The smell of the salty sea and the caw of wheeling seabirds. The sound of a relaxing surf as it rises and breaks along the beach with a breath-taking crash. It's the feel of a trusted friend's hug, the passionate embrace of a lover as you bask together, ensnared in the wonders of love. It's the wonder as you hold your newborn child close as they fall asleep in your protective embrace. It's the peace of setting in the bough of a tree who is so ancient, it knows all, but mostly not to speak, silent in its wisdom. It is swaying in a church, singing your very soul to the one thing you hope is listening. It is the entrancing sound of a faint thunderstorm, as the lovely sound of raindrops patters down to lull its captive human audience to sleep. It is the sight of the first snow, the power the silence holds.
True peace can only come from within. When the invasion of the modern world has been stripped away, leaving an unsuspecting human open and filled with wonder. For it is only when the rest of life has faded from our ears and thoughts when we are calm and receptive to the awesome power of something beyond a simple being.
Life is a stressful place, our parents tell us this and their parents told them that. Life is not fair, it is not always fun, it is a hard place to grow up in and then thereof also live in, but if a person truly wants to there are ways to find peace. Some will listen to the rain as it falls in perfectly formed droplets, some will hike through an overgrown forest to reach new places. Some will climb mountains, reach the top and stare into the most beautiful sunset they will ever lay eyes on. Some will meditate and find that peace; I find that peace during the winter, some will paint the colors of their very soul onto a canvas, the world encompassed by the feelings the art provokes. Some will stretch and twist with flowing grace as their minds and spirits blend, finding that perfect balance. As for myself, I will be waiting for the perfect season. The season of sparkling snow, of sleeping trees, I will await the winter. The time of year when everything is given a new life, a clean slate; to change as they please, to fix their mistakes, to change their colors.