In my recovery, I have always looked to nature for insight and inspiration about how change and growth occur. Sometimes nature teaches that change occurs in grand, sweeping gestures such as an ocean gale tearing a new gap in a coastline or a flood forever changing a river’s course.  But grand, sudden change is the exception rather than the rule.  Most change in nature is far more quiet, grace-filled and subtle. Most changes in nature are more evolution than revolution.

I am sitting here writing this essay on the eve of the winter solstice. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. I love to contemplate how something wonderful is happening all around me on this night.  It is happening quietly and without fanfare.  In the midst of the holiday bustle, the solstice comes without bows or ribbons or any effort on our part.  Yet a change is taking place.  It is a slow and imperceptible change. In the days following the solstice, the daylight will grow longer. Not by leaps and bounds, but my seconds and minutes.  Each day will bring a slight increase in daylight so that by spring our world will erupt into bloom and warmth and new life everywhere.  All of spring’s possibility is right here, right now, in the very depths of the longest, darkest night of our year.  Spring comes, not as revolution, but as evolution whose origins are in this longest night. When times are tough for me, I remember this lesson from nature and it sustains my recovery.

Happy Holidays from your friends at Pat Deegan & Associates!