Welcoming the Snow Queen
The Snow Queen is here…the temperature is 0° F, with the blowing winds of her breath making it feel even colder. Her sparkling white gown covers the ground. Thank goodness the sun is shining.
The birds do not seem intimidated by Her Highness. I watch them busy at the feeder outside my studio window—some on the ground pecking at the snow to find the dropped seed as the Snow Queen watches, and I shiver. How do they do it? I do not wish to feel her icy touch. All I want to do is curl up with a good book in some cozy corner of the house (preferably with a cup of really good dark hot chocolate) and read until I fall asleep.
And though I am not always delighted to see her, I think the poor Snow Queen gets a bum rap. Oh sure, she has her crazy fans out there who worship her with this strange and deathly rite of hurtling themselves down steep inclines at break-neck speed, (they give the Queen a real rush), but most of us hate to see her coming and can’t wait until Her Highness has gathered her frosty skirts about her and departed for another eight months or so.
And I will admit that, if not treated with the proper respect, she can be deadly. However, if welcomed into our presence with true honor and appreciation for her power and her gifts, she can be quite a generous guest.
Winter used to be a time for slowing down, for sleeping more and working less, allowing the body to rest and rejuvenate, but now electricity allows us to continue working and pushing ourselves as it if is any other season of the year. Still, somewhere deep inside, our genes, our spirits want to welcome the Queen the same way the bear does—we want to slow down, to curl up, to rest, to sleep, to dream.
We so seldom give ourselves permission to slow down, to rest, to relax. We rush around with to-do lists running through our heads like the banner update on CNN—and it never ends. The Snow Queen can help us with that.
When she comes to visit, my husband and I always accomplish some redecoration or refinishing project that has been on our to-do list forever. We find more time to sit and watch movies on DVD together. And, since there is no yard work that can be done this time of year, we find ourselves entering into a dance of moving into our creative spaces—he to his woodshop and garage, and I into my studio—and then back out again to reconnect and check on each other’s projects. We spend more time in the kitchen, my husband baking bread, and I trying out new recipes from my food magazines.
I spend more time reading, exploring, planning and daydreaming in my studio, reevaluating goals and desires, clarifying my vision for the year ahead.
Perhaps, if more of us welcomed the Snow Queen with a true awareness and appreciation for her gifts and allowed her to lead us is into the darkness and chill of winter as a time to enter the stillness and silence of creative potential, she’d stop trying to create a permanent winter and she’d leave those Narnia children alone.
Which reminds me, I think it is time for a nap.