It’s hard to make way at this time of year. The light has gone by 4:00 pm and the weather is so cold and damp and miserable I find myself reluctant to step outside the door. I remind myself we’re running down to the solstice now – all the gardens are dead and hung over with the shrivelled remains of last season’s optimism. No sense in hanging onto it. It’s gone now. We just have to weather the season, trust it will turn, and that things will pass.
Rather tired today, aching back and little patience. I’ve been growling at nothing and generally wishing myself a hundred miles from all other human beings – but that’s not easy when you’re a father and a husband. So you end the day feeling moth-eaten and weary, like you’ve not slept properly in days.
I seem to have been shuffling around from one room to the next, looking for somewhere to settle, but there’s always been someone there, either watching TV, playing computer games, doing homework, or playing guitar. I’d settle out in the garage except it’s too cold and damp and smells of mice, and I’m afraid they’d prefer it if I stayed there all the time.
And all I want to do is find my muse, but she’s a fickle lady at the best of times and won’t come when it’s not quiet, or I’m out of sorts. She’s been good to me of late and I should be grateful but I do miss her when she’s not there. So I toss some coins, split the universe into sixty four threads and ask the I Ching for it’s advice. It points me to hexagram 13. Naturally enough, this is about seeking fellowship . The changing lines tell me we doubt ourselves, that we lack the trust necessary to sustain this fickle thing we have going with our mistress, and so we have sunk back into isolation. But all is not lost, it reassures us, that the changes will see us through to hexagram 27 – to Nourishment, to that which sustains us. But not today.
So, I take my aching back and my camera and hobble off for a walk in the pale wintery sunshine, but we’ve had so much rain of late the meadows are sodden and the paths are churned to slime, and all the time there’s the sense of this oppressive darkness hanging over you. We grit our teeth. We weather it. We carry on.
Then suddenly the clock is nudging 11:30pm and you’re aware of the day-job looming, and you don’t seem to have had more than a minute to yourself all day. You know it’s time to tiptoe off to bed and you’re wondering if you might dream interestingly tonight, except you’ve not remembered a single dream in weeks.
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