(Time to read: ~ 2 minutes)
I’ve been watching myself with some amusement lately.
When I was a child we used to spend our summers at the farmhouse that my great-great-grandfather Rory MacLean built in the 1800s on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. It was a wonderful place for a child – away in the country, miles from any neighbour, up on a hill that caught all the summer breezes.
But once or twice we got the opportunity to visit this landscape in winter, when the snowbanks were higher than the houses, and the intensity of the silence almost made your ears ache.
How incredibly difficult it must have been for my pioneer ancestors then! I imagine them virtually cut off from all sources of supplies from the first blizzard until spring. I’m guessing it must have been a requirement for survival that before that first big snowstorm they brought in all the crops and purchased anything they would need before spring.
While my logical brain tells me it can’t be true, I have a body sense that these survival tactics have been imprinted on my genes by the generations of my pioneer ancestors.
What I do know is that every fall, I find myself gathering to myself everything I think I will need until spring – clothing, office supplies, books – with a level of intensity, almost desperation, that feels survival-driven.
I’m appreciating that this year I feel more aware of this process, and perhaps more accepting and compassionate toward myself as I watch my squirrel-like energy, accumulating and “burying” my own particular version of the nuts I hope to sustain me through the winter.
I’m curious if you notice any changes in yourself at this time of year? And what is your attitude toward yourself as you notice those differences?
I wish for you (and me!) compassion and acceptance as well as choice throughout the changing seasons.
Happy Autumn!
🙂
Glenda
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