Question: What is the significance of the seasons in relation to our own lives?

Answer: Each season represents an individual “story” — as well as doing its individual part in the telling of a far greater story whose principle character is hidden in the never-ending cycle of these seasons themselves. Each year of our physical life on earth, we see the arrival of gentle spring rains that stir seeds into new growth, the warmth of summer that hastens fruition, biting fall winds that release what must yield, and the chill of winter days whose stillness seems empty of life. These same seasons unfold within us much in the same way, meaning that inwardly, emotionally, we experience the entire gamut of these invisible forces on a daily basis. Accordingly, we go through what these “seasons” have wrought within us, each according to our understanding of what these movements mean, and how they can be best used to achieve our intention.

Question: Some days when our hearts feel like they’re living in winter — even though it may actually be summer — what encouragement can understanding the cycle of the seasons offer?

Answer: “To every thing, there is a season,” so says Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. But we can see that each season holds within it — as does cold winter earth hold summer seeds — the season that follows it and that secretly serves to fulfill its purpose. This means that right within winter, all the potency of spring awaits; within spring, all the fullness of summer awaits; so forth, and so on it goes. The “winter heart” — the heart stripped of its happiness because of having lost something or someone it loved — is only as “forsaken” as is our mistaken belief that the momentary disappearance of what we love means that love no longer exists. The changing seasons show us that while all forms must come and go, the secret Life behind them, and the act of Love by which they are created, lives on forever.