Winter is passing, officially half over ... I have been dealing with specific health challenges that are better than they would have been had I not spent all of 2024 -- all four seasons -- outdoors, literally experiencing a lot of what Ms. Ono has to say here!
Of course, in San Francisco, CA, it is possible to experience all four seasons in one day, and they do tend to blur into each other ... last year, winter could not decide whether it wanted to be itself or late-late-autumn before turning into early-early spring, and this year is arguing viciously with itself about being itself or early-early spring ...
This requires perseverance in a different way, since the body struggles to get into proper adjustment ... but this also can be an invitation not to fight it all, but to seek warmth, quiet, and rest, and enjoy those things. To me, this is winter's specific blessing, held by much of half the world at once in Creation: many of the plants and trees also rest!
I am also glad for the reminders of spring to come, and its new beginnings ... every new year, with its first half literally containing the whole of spring, comes full of innocent hope ... we know nothing of the challenges that will lie ahead, and that does recall the days when we could look into our entire lives in this way, not yet marred with human failures of our own and others.
I remember the summer of last year ... comfortably warm and so beautiful that indeed I was often exuberant to the point of ecstasy that rolled over, just in time for autumn, into reverence because of the abundance I had been and would be continuing to experience ... in the second half of 2024 I found myself mindfully immersed in abundance, actually aware of its infinite dimensions!
Winter came in very cold and unpleasant, unusually on time for San Francisco, but one does persevere, knowing spring will come again. For me, winter is usually a time of rest and reflection, January containing both the New Year and my birthday. This regular pattern for me in this year overlaps me recovering from serious illness (though I was asymptomatic and had no clue until diagnosed).
I was at the hospital when I saw the quote by Yoko Ono ... it is on a sign there, and it reminded me ... every season of life, even winter, has its own beauty and purpose. I remember to persevere, as the greater part of the year is still to bloom out with new beginnings in which I shall be exuberant, and then reverent, and then, while again persevering, I will rest, remember, and reflect.
I offer these possibilities also to you!