Deep Winter

of elements and matter

This feels like the season of inner planes, of spending more time with ourselves and our thoughts. There are harsh edges to winter and there’s no doubt that it can feel unforgiving and relentless. But I also find it a calmer, quieter time when the pressure to “Enjoy yourself! It’s summer!”—with its accompanying din—is thankfully still a few months away. Is there an equivalent of hibernation for the summer, I wonder? A legitimate way of hiding until the cooler months return? The heat and the sun make me want to retreat. Summer reminds me of the popular kids at school: all lithe tanned limbs, sportiness, hair flicks and sparkly smiles that looked effortless and unattainable. With a round shape and pale, short everything, summer was not my friend. Sweat and sunburn did not a cool kid make in the 1990s.

Awkward memories aside, my love of winter has only ever grown. To my eyes the never–quite–bright light makes everything look like film photography. Even the most uneventful scenes take on a velveteen texture; everyday vignettes look matte and grainy.

It’s also a sensory feeling. When I’m not curled up under blankets I want to be outside and feel the bitter gale whip through my cotton shirt. Cold wind on skin is the sensation I seek. I sometimes wonder if I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but in reverse: happier with cloud than sun. But the one word (and feeling) that encapsulates my love for winter is elemental. The phenomena of physical nature, untamed. The weather, the land, the combination of the two together.

Atmospheric. Baroscopic.

I also have an enduring fascination with the classical four elements – formerly regarded as the constituents of the material universe which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter. It’s their symbolism and the metaphors I’m drawn to – assigning my own meaning and associations to them.

FIRE // Bringing light and warmth. A torch showing the way. An invitation to burn away regrets, ignite passions and be a flame that passes the light to others who are walking through the darkness. Reassurance in the shadows. Survival and subsistence. Cravings. A heat that teaches pain. Sitting with others. Community. A lantern in the dark. Glowing embers, storytelling and coming together.

EARTH // Building strength. Holding us and supporting us as we grow strong roots so that we can rise. Physical. Rocks and roots and soil. Depth. The foundations in the ground. Growth. Essence. Steadiness. Visible strength. Ancient layers and eons. Protection and home and boundaries. Stubbornness. Firm, reliable, stable and calm. To be held.

WATER // Washing clean, cleansing, quenching our thirst. Nourishing us and allowing us to explore the ebb and flow of our emotions. Purifying. Holding and buoying or surging and drowning. Creativity. Birth. Primordial. Floating, soothing. Deep. Imagination, raw, flowing, cyclical, mysterious. Powerful. Healing. Therapeutic.

AIR // Bringing the breath of life. Blowing out the old and bringing in the new. Invisible strength. Sound and motion. A cooling. The winds of change. The feeling of breeze on skin: a sensory seek. Lifting, floating, oxygen. Soaring, dreaming. Freedom, unencumbered. Tempest. Flight. Life giving. Weightlessness. Ether.

Although we are literally chemical elements and matter in the physical sense, our bundles of individual atoms—in other words our bodies—house multitudes of different experiences and feelings. In this way the four elements in the metaphorical sense remind me of the different parts of ourselves. They are organic representations of the multi-dimensional people that we all are: sensing, thinking, responding, reacting and puzzling our way through life. Different elements may dominate from time to time, but they all remain a part of our imperfectly perfect, rounded whole.

It’s similar to the way I see the seasons: cycles of varying physical phenomena, bringing wanted and unwanted sensations with their unpredictability and extremes. Each season is part of the cycle, part of the whole. And although being out in the the wilder weather makes me feel more alive than any other time, I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to live only in winter. So whilst I savour this time of deep cold and frosts, when the first dusting of snow has found the tips of my eyelashes, I also know that I will revel in the first sign of new growth that the Spring ushers in.