#we dont fully know what unconditonal love is

[whiskey-nips]

The Winter Cycle and confronting the Shadow

I have 45 drafts of my writing on this tumblr. I’ve just gone throught them and cringed, laughed, recognized cycles, and have announced my victory over all  the bullshit of my old self. It’s new years, time to reflect and purge, burn, drown, and bury all the shadows of the past you that haunt you and keep you from sleeping at night. 

I admit that I ask questions that are stupid and I’m too lazy to look up things like...Can you see your shadow in the snow? But I think about shadows, death and darkness a lot in the winter. I dont think it’s scary, I think it’s the type of thinking that is aligned with the cycles of nature. Creepy shadows of skeleton trees in your window. The longest night passes in december, it seems like the dark lasts forever. Alot of people die in winter and not just as a coicidence, but because winter is lonely, hard and dark. In the world in my head...Winter is for battling the shadow in yourself. You see, it’s too cold and dead to distract youself with outside matters. It’s snowing and you’re stuck inside, bored and you start to get introspective. Old wounds and hurts find their way back in your brain when everything is still and there is nothing to be done, but stay warm in bed and dwell. The skeleton trees outside your window have to face their shadow and the fact that underneath their bountiful bushy leaves and foilage they are a vulnerable collection of bare twigs and branches. frozen water penetrates them and weighs heavy on them, breaking little parts of themselves, but luckily the roots underground that you can not see are busy. Keeping them alive monitoring where stored sustainance should go. The roots, the roots, the roots. bless those roots and our roots, Acknowledge your roots, what keeps you going when everything is dark, cold, and barren. When you see yourself immobilized by the sheer nature of winter, do you distract yourself or reflect on the parts of yourself you may not like, but are stuck with. Can you learn to be still with them? Can you learn to accept them? Can you love yourself fully even though you are sometimes a flawed, terrible, monster or agent of chaos and destruction? 

In these times maybe people reflect on faith or look towards others for validation, they may even lash out about their life and situation to loved ones, or they could be reduced to a puddle of self pity. I have been all of these people, but this year I’m trying really hard to love and accept myself all of myself and mostly importantly my shadow self. looking inwardly at my shadow self, I see all my old destructive habits and faults, but I also see little girl me, who doesnt know what I know now and is just trying her best, without a lot of help or direction. She doesnt have the bags under her eyes or the beat up farm hands I do now, she is young and precious.  And when I see little girl me, I see my 9 month old daughter, shes learning how to be a person, learning everything from me, so in turn i need to keep learning so that I can keep teaching her. I see these little children and realize a lot of the things that I did that i feel guilt or shame about was because I wanted attention, I wanted to feel loved, I wanted to feel less lonely. I didnt have the coping mechanisms or the understanding of healthy relationships that I do now. So I give little me and my own baby girl unconditional love and acceptance. Because I think most people can agree that all children deserve love, period. Aren’t we all someone’s child? Me and my daughter and human peoples in general are always going to make mistakes out of emotions like jelousy, and lonliness, anger, panic, discontentment and that never ends in lifes, but we can figure out why we did the things we did. Accept that everyone goes through things like these and has these unpleasant emotions that can lead to unpleasant thoughts, and actions. The fact that you are feeling sorry, guilt and shame about whatever happened means that you have become wiser. You are not that person that made that mistake anymore, Congratualions are in order, you have ascended and bettered yourself from that shitty person you were and in that moment in time.

So in short, face that shitty stuff, own up to it, Realize you’re not that person anymore, and look, at least you learned something new about yourself, your wants, needs, boundaries, desires and what have you. I talked to my significant other about my shame, guilt, and embarressment and it brought me closer to him. True intimacy is vulnerability. And knowing my faults and shortcomings, he still loves me unconditionally and loves me for all that I am, bugs and all. We had amazing sex after our sob fest. I want my daughter to know unconditional love and I will make sure to give it to her through all the hard, embarressing and challenging phases of her life, so that she may find the unconditonal love I have with my friends and partner in life. 

I think we are supposed to face, accept and love our shadows in winter and after all the introspection, deep thoughts, dissecting of traumas, purging of things that dont serve us anymore,  we should be filled up again. Meaning a holiday party that goes on for a full month. Viking style is what comes to mind the most, A huge wooden dining hall lit only by a huge hearth and lots of candles. the coldest, darkest month of the year is the setting of this great party and feast, that starts on the solstice and doesnt end till the middle of january. The old ancestors had it right. Before capitalism all you did in winter was live off your year’s harvest and stayed inside with loved ones, drink, be merry. Nothing urgent was or could be done until you could work the land again anyways. the only priority was keeping everyone warm, fed, loved and sane during this time of year. I hope there is a cozy winter party hall in my future. Here’s to the new year and surviving the winter. May we try and keep each other warm with our dreams and words of love, understanding, and acceptance this winter, so that we may be able to celebrate, hug and party out the cold and darkness together next winter.

#shadows #writing #winter cycle #old zinester