Anyone else feeling hibernation coming on?
As usual, I turn to my favorite book in December, Gayle Boss’ All Creation Waits. It’s a portrayal of 25 different animals in winter and how they survive. No meditation prompts, no metaphors, just beautiful prints and straight-up descriptions of how they escape freezing and starvation during the coldest months.
Today’s animal was the chickadee, whose brain actually grows larger in the winter because it’s keeping a mental map of stored seeds. Watching the chickadees at the feeder, Gayle says,
“No wonder the chickadees at the feeder seem ecstatic. Their winter stashes could last longer thanks to the bonanza—best, the black-oil sunflower seeds—poured out every morning. As they swirl…about my feeder now, they seem a flock of St. Francises. Like the saint wed to Lady Poverty, every winter day the equation of their existence is open: Will there be enough of what they need to take them through the dark night, into tomorrow? Beyond reason, like the saint, they act as if the question is truly an opening, a freedom, a joy.”
“Every day the equation of their existence is open.” Isn’t it that way for all of us?
There have been two deaths in my orbit lately—I’m feeling that open equation. And certainly, a glance at the headlines or on any downtown block and we see that, for many people this winter, there truly is not enough.
For those of us who have shelter, food, and some semblance of regional or political security, our invitation is to meet each day’s need as “an opening, a freedom, a joy,” trusting that we will find the seeds we need, or that someone will be generous. Moment by moment, day by day, we will make it through the winter. And then we may even have the energy to share what we find.
Part of the way this miracle happens is by conserving energy. Not spending our metabolic fire on things that don’t nourish us. Not burning our fuel on things like image, busyness, niceness, resentment, self-righteousness, planning and fixations of every kind. Practicing the virtue of equanimity instead. In Buddhist teaching, equanimity is the boat that protects us from the worldly winds of praise/blame, success/failure, fame/disrepute, and pleasure/pain. We spend so much energy chasing the former and avoiding the latter, all the while being tossed around. Equanimity lets us meet the storm of life with open arms, being present to it all without being overwhelmed or stuck. We learn to trust that, each moment, our inner map will lead us to what is needed.
May you be enfolded in the spirit of chickadee this coming week, finding in your survival an opening, a freedom, a joy.