Winter Listening People

I feel very grateful and blessed to live in these ancient highlands of Western, North Carolina. To live in a place where I can distinctly experience the four seasonal shields of initiation. As I move more deeply into winters embrace here in the mountains, I can sense a new way of belonging that organically arises from the soil like a flower thirsty for sunlight. If the seasonal shield of summer activates our full creative expression then the winter shield of initiation is one that calls us more deeply into stillness and listening, remembering and belonging.

I went out onto the land today to gather firewood for the snow that will be arriving during the night. Walking through a woodland landscape of fresh snowfall can be a humbling experience. I can feel my own smallness in this vast landscape of woods and silence. Bear, coyote and deer… tracks left in the snow by others who have come this way before us, foot prints and heart beats left in the ground echo with old stories and songs as evidence that we are not alone.

I pause for a moment in the woods above the river by on old beach tree with two trunks. In this place I am reminded of those unseen angles cloaked in the mystery of stillness and silence that offer council and guidance. It is in these liminal spaces we may find that if we are quiet enough and humble enough we can make ourselves available to their offering of grace.

Winter has a way of reminding us to surrender to something that is greater then ourselves and our own limited resourcefulness. It is in this woodland council of the winter listening people that offers unconditional presence and encouragement to accept our selves just as we are in this moment and to accept the stories that have brought us to this crossroads if we are to engender the kind of faith that Spring will return. Deep faith such as this does not arise from the prescribed constructs of our spiritual road maps, but more often from the dark soil of uncertainty and tears and open heart, that place of prayer carried only by the wind without the ground of certainty and beliefs to stand on.

If you approach what is sacred with a humble heart, that which is sacred will approach you as well. I turn now and face the north and offer this prayer of invocation to the good medicine people of winter listening.

Creator, Great Mystery,
Beautiful ones of the north,
Spirits of winters embrace,
I am very grateful for my life.

I come to you on this day
With a clear heart,
An open heart,
And humble heart.

I call upon the medicine of the sacred mountain.
The elders and the story keepers,
The good medicine of earth, soil and soul;
These standing tall ones of spruce, cedar and oak
Of memory and belonging;
Of stillness and deep listening;
Of acceptance, surrender and grace.

The place where we learn to let go so completely
That spring begins to rise up from thawing ground
With the scent of winter jasmine
Simply, because we let go enough.

I call upon the good medicine people of winter listening
To awaken within each one of us
That bone memory where you live as well.

May the way in which we live our lives
Be a blessing to all our relations.
Blessed Be!

Written by Kedar Brown