When the Trees are Bare


Hello FPA and Happy New Year to you each! January has arrived, along with it a new start as we welcome 2025. In our part of the world a new year comes in the middle of our winter season- when the trees are bare.

I write a lot about the changing of the seasons and the way our weather affects us. I think because one of the universal human experiences is the experience of weather. Weather is also a way to connect to our own communities, as we experience the changing seasons together. The energy of the collective shifts as the energy of the sun and the rain and the temperatures shift. I also love connecting to the changing of the seasons. As life comes in seasons, in waves of celebration and sadness, in ups and downs of abundance and scarcity, so does our environment.

I've been thinking this season about the juxtaposition of newness with winter. The idea of 'new' brings with it ideas of spring, of blossoms and baby animals, of growth and expansion. Winter is not a time of growth, nor of expansion. Winter is a time of contraction. The earth contracts back into itself, becoming quiet and still. The animals burrow deep to hide away from the bitter colds. The sun tucks itself away behind gray skies and the wind whips against bare branches.

Winter is for retreat. Retreating back into cozy moments with family, into warm mugs of coffee and cocoa between our hands, into fluffy blankets with fantastical books in our laps, into the peace of our pets resting their sleepy heads on us.

In this moment of celebration of new, be thoughtful about attending to your winterized self. The rest of nature quiets down in this time, and we are part of nature. Surely a new start can energize and excite you, help you re-calibrate to your goals and hopes, bring you clarity of the direction you want your life moving in. But be thoughtful about balance in this season, when the trees are bare, knowing and trusting that the trees once more will green and grow, as will we. 


- Rae Holliday, LMFT

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