Here is a bit of Farmer John, Caminoheads Heartland Bureau Chief:

“Reading Steve-O’s comments here, as well as many of the “regulars”, I find I often feel like Charley Brown in one of Charles Schulz’s comics. Linus and Charlie are lying on their backs viewing the clouds. Linus launches into a lengthy description of what he sees in the drifting shapes far above. His detailed description involved crenelations, parapets, and ionic columns. Charlie timidly admits, “I thought I saw a dog”.

“The dark and cold months represent “Rest” to me, the inveterate farmer. The soil rests for two thirds of its life, after pulsing life into the crops that we have planted into it for four heat-soaked months. It is, however, a “productive” rest, as the microbes and the minerals and the moisture do their intricate weaving to incorporate all the previous years organic matter into new fuel for future growth. This break is as essential to the soil as our nightly trips to our own beds. We both must have the “Rest” to be able to resume. Long hours of darkness are conducive to such (non) activity. And as the animal side of nature “bulks up” for their long winter’s hibernation, we also provide food for the soil as well, replacing at a bare minimum the nutrients we removed with this year’s crop.

“That seems to jibe well with Steve-O’s “A time of serious work and also of great anticipation for whatever lie ahead”.”

A Bit of Steve-O, Caminoheads NorthWest Bureau Chief:

After the marvelous expansion on the winter-purpose theme Farmer John gave us, I am especially trying to take the theme to heart – to take the season of outer “dormancy,” the apparent nothingness of the low-light winter, as a time of recognizing the not-outwardly obvious, of being “with” wherever we are, right now. To let the ‘assignment’ – our internal, anticipatory integration of all we’ve become be seen and known. And it really is anchored in anticipation. Without the wonder and belief in what comes next, it is just rote, meaningless lesson-learning.

I heard it explained recently ( Rabbi Jill Zimmerman’s webinar) that in the Jewish tradition, God asks Adam ( post apple-eating), “Where are you?” while Adam is pretty much hiding out, unsure, uncertain and confused. Well, not a question God needed Adam’s help answer, right? The question is “Ayeka?” which means not so much physically “where are you”, but “where are you– your spiritual location, your sense of yourself and your internal navigation?”.

And the answer is “Heneini” – “I am here”, in this new place for me, aware in new ways, searching in new ways…

That describes, perhaps, the winter journey; the re-assessment and coming to know oneself in the moment. Things have changed, of course, but have we taken the interlude to re-know our spiritual location? Rather than see the apple-eating experience as sin, some, and surely in the Jewish tradition, see it as the beginning of consciousness, of self-knowledge. To me, that’s realizing it is now up to us to be present to ourselves, our spiritual status, mindful of each moment. I way too often “get lost in living”. And the prescription is Winter I think. Winter presents a magical and miraculous opportunity, in the perfect low-light, nothing-much-going-on-in-the-exterior-world-of-Doing wrapping. In this season of anticipation it seems all set up for us– prepped and gifted, wintery– to gracefully fall into re-reading the assignment and get started on the homework.

In the same Jewish-tradition view, when we pause and re-locate ourselves in the moment with all the spiritual awareness we have gained we look for God to say, ‘Yodea! I see you.’ That is what we all want…to be seen and confirmed for who we truly are, who we are becoming, in the fullest sense.
Also wrapped in anticipation.
What a gift wintertime is.
“Ayeka?”
“Heneini”
“Yodea!”

S Sunde

Well, all great stuff for a Friday blogpost, Thanks guys!

out of the darkness loves, Felipé.