The Great Clock of Time

The winter is finally gone. In my country everything comes back to life again after winter – nature and people. And me. Not that I don’t live in the wintertime, but I hibernate. I don’t want to go out much. I need more sleep. I have less energy. I spend more time looking at things in the inner world – and at least for me that is the best state of mind for writing.

Winter is my survival camp. It starts around November… then comes the dark December… the cold January… and February, when everything is still covered by snow. It feels like I’m making an arduous climb over a high mountain – until I reach the top, the beginning of March, and I begin to see again the sunlit landscapes on the other side of the mountain: the long days, lingering evenings, and in the end the Midsummer’s endless white nights.

There is magic in this great cycle of nature, in this grand clock of time: There is a time for closing the doors and windows, and a time of opening them; there is a time for exploring the darkness, and a time for embracing the light.

Seasons change people, just as they change the nature – at least here near the Arctic Circle. The spring has taken me away from my computer to the company of other people, to working in the garden in our summer place, to some projects that have been waiting for the energy of summer.

I haven’t been able to write recently as much as before. I will continue, but there may be some breaks. So please be patient.

See you again next weekend.

P.S. I show you some photos that I’ve taken on my daily walks – a swan couple on the lake, an old apple tree with a polypore on its trunk, wood anemones basking in the bright sunlight. Just snapshots taken by my iPhone, to give you an idea of how the nature here looks like just now, after all the snow is gone.