Happy New Year
As midwinter passes and the light begins to return, this is a time of hope and awakening beginning, still quiet and reflective but moving forwards.
The bulbs are beginning to push through the cold soil and we await the first real sign of life, the brave little snowdrops, which seem to come earlier each year as the climate warms.
Watching the small birds frantically feeding on the feeder on a freezing day, from the warmth inside the house, it’s easy to forget the harshness of winter. We’ve moved beyond it being a matter of survival. But within ourselves, it’s the time when we might wonder if we’ll make it through, what the future holds, as we emerge from the days when there is more dark than light. How to respond and open ourselves again in the cold light of earliest spring, to say yes to life. If the last year was a tough one, perhaps because of bereavements, as we have had in our family, we hope for a gentler one.
I am not a fan of new year resolutions – they are too easily broken giving a sense of failure. What I hope for is good health, friendship, a more peaceful world, a good smattering of joy and resilience and good humour when things are not so good. And I wish the same for you.
Happy New Year to you.
Simon Smith
Heart & Soul Funerals, Buckfastleigh. 01364 643522
Snowdrops by Louise Gluck
Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring–
afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
