Zima
I love the cold. I mean it, I love it. Up here, in Midwinter, the air is so cold and clear that it seems like you can just see forever; we dont realize how much haze humidity adds to the air, until it is so cold that the air contains no moisture. Today, it is literally too cold to snow, but the world is displayed in a clarity, a detail, that is startlingly beautiful, yet difficult to define.
The sun barely peeks over the treetops to the south, and in another two weeks or so, it will slip beneath the horizon entirely and not return for nearly six weeks. The dark of winter will be here.
It is a time to stay inside with family, a time to venture out only to get snow to melt, to maybe speak to a neighbor, to maybe take a few minutes to look around, before scurrying back inside.
I'm just standing here today, looking around. I cannot explain how much I love winter.
It's noon. I can see stars in the sky, and it's noon, that is how weak the sun's light is. My heavy shawl and robes are enough for short trips outside, especially when there is no wind, like today. It is dead calm, the sky is the most brilliant, deep blue, studded with stars, and all around, the trees are creaking under their heavy layers of snow, the whole world wreathed in a mantle of pure white.
Sadly, it is the beginning of the season of
zimjukaatsi, one of many words which have no direct translation into other languages. Literally, the word means “Winter in the mind”, referring to the severe depression, and even madness, than can overtake virtually anyone during the long dark of winter. As I look around, I cannot believe that something so wonderful, so beautiful, could cause such grief and torment.
The condition is so well known that it pervades our folklore; many are the songs or poems about someone, usually a young woman, driven mad by Winter, who is driven to horrific acts by the eternal darkness and cold. The coming of spring is seen as a rebirth of both the world and the mind, and the day when the sun first finally rises again in Mikramurka – exactly WHAT day, of course, depends on where one lives, but the traditional date is 3 weeks after Midwinter – is so important it is celebrated by Sebiestor across New Eden, even within the Empire.
I am very grateful that I have never suffered from it; I manage to while away the weeks within my kenkii, visiting friends, weaving and sewing, resting and cooking and maybe gaining a few kilos. It is a time of rest for us, the “easy” time of the year.
Or would be. I'm the Shaman, you see; it falls to me, to help people get through the Winter without losing their minds. During the dark of winter, the veil between our world and that which the spirits inhabit is at its thinnest, their influence in our lives the strongest. They will speak to us, in the dark, or through the aurora, or even, for some, through the mind's faint whispers of madness. Some spirits are benevolent. Some are not.
That's why I am out here today, to ask the Spirits – those benevolent, helpful ones – to guide us all, safely, through the dark of winter, to see us all through, intact in mind and body, to the return of the sun in the spring. I position everything I've brought – my mirror, the cedar, the smoked fish and apples, the bottle of wine – and I make my offering. I light the fire, I swing the pendant hanging from my brooch around, and around, through the smoke.
My shaman, my teacher, taught me this ritual, on a day exactly like this, over forty years ago. I remember being so distracted. I just wanted to look around, to go exploring in the woods, to go find my friends, who I could hear playing not so far off. I was angry that on so perfect a day, I had to stay with her and learn what I thought was yet another ritual which had no purpose, more smoke and mirrors and nonsense. I thought it was nonsense. Me. Can you believe it?
I've felt so guilty for that attitude ever since. I know, now, how frustrated she must have been with me, to hear me refer to so many of the things she tried to teach me as nonsense.
I sit in the snow awhile, just staring into the small mirror I have hung from the branch before me, watching the small fire burn, listening to the amazing sound of silence; any sound, no matter how faint, is amplified by the frigid air, but today, there is nothing to hear.
I watch myself in the mirror, as I have every year. Every year, I've grown a bit older, a change I can see, that I can remember being able to see. My hair is almost all completely white already – I'm not that old, after all – the lines on my face deeper, longer, more numerous, my face thinner, every winter, every time. Growing older doesn't bother me anymore, not really, so I've no idea why I devote so much thought to this. See how the mind wanders?
I pick up my mirror and hang it back around my neck, quietly say goodbye to whichever of the Spirits answered my call, and head back inside. My
kenkii is warm, and the sun is already nearly set – the sky grown much darker.
I'm not sure how long I sat there, but the aurora is becoming visible.. at least an hour, or more? I'm not cold, at all. I guess my robes are warmer than I thought.
I look back at the forest, and wish I could have stayed a while longer. So much has changed for me, this past year. I am not ready to go inside yet.
Maybe I'll just go sit back over here, for just a little while more. I think that's what I'll do. It
is a beautiful night.
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Topic: Zima (Read 652 times)