how we might relate to certain of the more  dispiriting and despair-inducing moments  

in our own development. Beginning in mid-October  in the northern hemisphere, the temperature drops,  

the nights draw in, the earth turns cold and hard,  fog lies low over the land and rain drives hard  

across the austere, comatose grey-brown landscape.  There is nothing immediate we can hope for; now  

we have nothing to do but wait, with resigned  patience, until something better shows up. 

Far more than we can generally accept, our minds  too have cycles. We cannot be permanently fruitful  

or creative, excited or open. There are necessary  times of retrenchment when, whatever we might  

desire, there seems no alternative but to stop. We  can no longer be productive; we lose direction and  

inspiration. We are immovably numb and sterile. It can be easy to panic:  

why should such a paralysed and detached mood  have descended on our formerly lively minds?  

Where have all our ideas and hopes gone? What has  happened to our previous animation and gladness? 

We should at such times take reassurance from  the late November landscape. Certainly things  

are lifeless, cold and in suspension. But this is  not the end of the story; the earth is like this  

not as a destination but as a phase. The deadness  is a prelude to new life; the fallow period  

is a guarantor of fecund days to come. All  living organisms need to recharge themselves,  

old leaves have to give way, tired limbs must  rest. The dance and ferment could not go on.  

It may look as if nothing at all is happening,  as though this is a trance without purpose. Yet,  

deep underground, at this very  moment, nutrients are being gathered,  

the groundwork for future ebullience and dynamism  is being laid down, another summer is very slowly  

collecting its strength. As nature seeks to tell us,  

we cannot permanently be in flower. We need  moments of repose and confusion. There is  

nothing to fear. Things will re-emerge. We should  make our peace with our own midwinters - and lean  

on nature’s wise accommodation to strengthen  us in our pursuit of serenity and patience.