It’s the depths of Winter. Ever since Yule, we’ve been able to see forward toward Spring, but Spring is still a few weeks away. Welcome to the Dead Time. It’s cold and quiet outside. No life stirs. Sure, depending on where you live, you may see the occasional flock of Canadian geese fly overhead, and there may be tracks in the snow, but for the most part, the world seems devoid of life.
This is the time of year when people start to get Cabin Fever. If you find yourself on a day with nothing to do, it can feel downright depressing. We have spent months in the dark. The sun only makes an appearance for a few hours each day, pitifully shining weak light across the land. If it’s overcast, even that small amount of light seems lost.
This is the time of year that I just want to go into my cave, and hibernate. Aside from the daily grind, there’s nothing to do, and even if there were, nothing seems worth doing.
This is the true danger of Winter.
This is how Winter kills. Not with cold, or snow. Winter kills with apathy. Did you know that more people die during Winter, than any other time? Typically, by suicide. It used to be the hard season, because it was hard to keep warm. People regularly froze to death.
Today, if you have a roof over your head, keeping warm is as easy as turning a dial. Yet most people still die in Winter. The lack of sunlight, and warmth outside, keeps people in, cut off from friends and family. Yes, you have your immediate family, the one you are responsible for, but it’s harder to get out to see the family that has always been responsible for you.
If you live alone, you don’t even have the distractions of family. Depression can set in quite easily at this time of year. Spring is less than a month away, yet it seems like it will never come. This is how Winter kills. It doesn’t pounce, it doesn’t chase, it creeps up ever so slowly, without you ever noticing. With glacial movement, it surrounds you, and holds you tight.
You can break free, it’s not difficult at all, but what’s the point? Better to just stay as you are, and not struggle, it whispers seductively in the back of your mind. Sleep a little longer, it invites, there’s no harm. Nothing needs to be done, that can’t be done later.
The soft seduction has been calling for months, in a voice so soft and quiet, that only now, in the dead of Winter, can it be heard. It calls, and invites, it never commands.
This is Winter at its peak.
As a Witch, I have observed this same call every year. Because I am a Witch, and know to look for it. Winter’s call doesn’t creep up on me unnoticed. I see it coming every year. I greet it like the old friend it is. Most people never see it coming. Those are who fall prey to it each year.
I have said many times, that being a Witch, means being observant. We see the change in the seasons before anyone else. We notice the warm breeze of Summer, while it’s still February, and the cold chill in the air, in August. Hearing Winter’s seductive call, doesn’t mean accepting the invitation. Once you are aware of what is happening, you can’t be taken by surprise.
The vast majority of people are blind to all but that tiny bit of their lives they focus on. They are the ones who fall victim to Winter’s embrace, without a clue that it’s happening. One day everything is fine, the next, they are depressed enough to contemplate ending everything.
This is the strength of Winter.
Some are more susceptible than others. Those who live alone, are more likely to feel depressed because of their isolation. Even so, anyone can fall victim to the Siren of Winter. Especially if you aren’t paying conscious attention to its call.
Just like Scylla and Charybdis, you flow through your daily life without a thought, then *BAM* you find yourself entrapped, between depression and apathy. This is why a Witch never just flows through life. A Witch grabs the rudder, and steers their own course through life. As a Witch, you choose where to go, and where your life will take you.
If you actively choose your own course, you keep a lookout for the things that will aid you, and avoid those that could wreck you. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to steer your own course, just a watchful eye for opportunity, and the will to take advantage of it.
Last week, I talked about my car. I spent four days without it, and $3000 for the repair. If I were just flowing through my life, that could be very depressing, since that was money I was planning to use to live on, while I work on regaining an income.
Instead, I recognized the good fortune, that it happened now, while I have the money, instead of months down the road, when I may not. Was it something I wanted to have happen? Of course not. It was simply a bump in the road, a rapid I couldn’t avoid. So I steered the best course I could, given the circumstances, and came out unscathed on the other side.
If you don’t steer your life, who will?
You may have no control over what happens to you. I certainly had no control over my car puking coolant all over the road, and needing repair. What you do have control over, is your attitude about what happens to you. If you are constantly expecting bad things to happen to you, you won’t be disappointed. If you are constantly expecting good things, and something unforeseen happens, you take it in stride.
You are your own worst enemy, and your own best ally. Life happens. Some things are avoidable, others are not. When you take control of your attitude, and do everything to keep it positive, you are able to avoid the things you can avoid, instead of letting the current take you into each and every one of them.
Those life events that are unavoidable, have less impact on you, because you are actively steering with your positive attitude. Life will test your resolve, especially when you first start steering, because letting your life take you where it will, you’ve found yourself surrounded by troubles and problems, just waiting to pop up.
Keeping a positive attitude is extremely hard at first, because you have to steer clear of all the problems life has flowed you close to. Things in your life are going to go wrong, when you first start to steer. Most people give up, and decide that it’s just not worth the effort.
Quitters never win, and winners never quit.
Those who continue to steer, by finding the positive aspects, in the negative things that happen to them, accepting those things, and paying the price immediately, will soon find themselves in calm water. Here, they can think, and plan what they want to do next. Planning is what we did last month, by figuring out what we really want to manifest.
Actively steering your life, requires a plan. A goal. A destination. Without that, where are you steering your life to? Just avoiding the rocks, is not a plan. Desire will give you your destination. Whatever you desire, you can steer a course to, but you have to have the desire, and the will to steer yourself there, no matter what happens with life.
Having a plan and a destination, also keeps Winter’s seductive call at a volume so low, you can’t hear it. You have purpose and a desire, as long as you don’t allow anything to keep you from it, you will attain it. Life really is as simple as that. We have the tendency to make life more complicated than it needs to be because, well, nothing can be that simple.
It can be that simple, and it is that simple, if you let it be that simple.
What do you think? Are you ready to take control of your life, and manifest the happiness you desire? Comment down below.
