The Sound of Polarity

When the Cold is Warm

When the wind is absent, I sense the delicacy of winter, like a piece of soft silk carefully wrapping my face, or a snowflake silently melting in my palm. This coldness practices in its timid voice, afraid of its power to awaken the sleepers inside. With a gust, it hears its calling to shout forth, like boiling water knowing its journey to vast air. I wonder what else the wind delivers ahead: singing the song of deep winter, conjuring hope home.

I love it when the cold is warm. I love the hug of snow and its invitation to silence. I love soft things moving from luxury to necessity. I love the release of entering a warm room from the cold, and the stimulation of crisp air that holds tight to the body. I love this closeness I feel beyond things, to people and objects I cherish. I love it when the cold is warm.

Balance finds itself throughout time, and passes itself on in our personal and collective memory. There is wisdom hanging from the trees, even if at times it is just lights for the dark. In this season of isolation, there is joy of solitude, opportunity of contemplation, and deepened awareness of connection and community. With absence, presence transforms. I hear now wonderings of my subtle senses, and I ask them kindly to hum loud and bright in this quiet dark.

Sweet silence arises with us all, singing stillness into mornings. Holding hands, we walk into the day, listening to wordless wisdom. Soft sensations tell me a story, of the cold floor through socked feet, of the kingdom of plants through the texture of my towel, of construction and elevation through the whispers of the walls. I seek in silence an unspeaking myth. Unwrapping fingers of these held hands, I flow into letting go, holding instead this new space, cleared by presence and created by absence.

This quiet bright of snow illuminates our turning of seasons, our tip of time, our great song’s rhythm and rhyme. As the universe renews its stars, as morning shifts to day, and as day hastens into the long night, one verse stays still: I love it when the cold is warm. I love it when the cold is warm.