The gorse
...a poem for the winter blues.
The last few leaves cling stubbornly to trees.
but nevertheless, it is definitely December.
The days are shrinking, inky blue nights expand.
The wind is colder and wilder than I remember.
Winter is coming and it’s looking bleak.
Anxiety inevitable, I’m dragging my feet.
Months and months and months
of cold, dark and empty.
And yet the sun rises every morning
and this morning into a crisp, blue sky.
It offers a new beginning
in amongst these ending times.
The robin sings and yellow flowers on the gorse.
Even in the darkest winter, there are dawns.
The tide line
My mental health has taken a battering during the last few winters. I have blocked the worst details out, but I can remember looking at my husband and simply saying, “I’m not okay.” He came up with the 7 days, 7 beaches, 7 pubs challenge, which he maintains to this day was just an attempt to try some local ales, but it got me out into nature every day between Christmas and New Year until I started to feel myself again. This year, I have been making a concerted effort to connect with the more-than-human world to see what wisdom it might have to share. This morning it offered me a spectacular sunrise, a robin and some gorse – as well as the insight that not only is nature not linear, but that there are cycles within the cycles.
I am a craft, nature and sustainability writer and a certified Blue Health Coach™. To learn more and try a Blue Health Coaching™ tool for yourself, visit makingdesigncircular.org/coaching.