Winter Death Magic - How the Dead Season Brings New Life

We're in the middle of winter where I live.  We seem to have skipped over autumn altogether, and we've now entered straight into the deep heart of winter, with current temperature (at the time of this writing) being somewhere around -13 C or about 8 F.   So any outside ventures require thick layers and warm boots!  A good cup of hot chocolate doesn't hurt, either. 

The ground outside has a cold, hard ring to it.   If I walk on it, it feels stiff and unforgiving beneath my booted feet. The grass is dead, and the tree limbs bear scars of deep frost along their leafless lengths.    Birds only move to the feeder when necessary - they don't linger, coming only long enough to fill their pocketed cheeks with enough loot to keep the hunger away. Then they flit away - back to the warmth of their nests in trees and/or the ground.    The deer, too, have taken to the high country, and where once they grazed on the lower part of my land, they are now nowhere to be seen - likely nestled deep in the glens where the biting wind can't reach.  The heron that fishes in my creek has disappeared - probably tucked snugly away in its nest, sleeping the deep sleep of the cold - waiting for a warmer day to bring more seafood.

This is the season of dead things.  The season of dying. The earth's abudance is not evident in this time period - my garden is sparsely populated, with only the hardiest of plants keeping their roots in the cold soil.  It is covered over with netting and protection, but even with my help, all but the toughest of crops have long died away.     The soil sleeps.   Life seems to slow down.  Even my body - aging as it is - seems to be long for a deeper rest these days - and my naps are longer, as if my nighttime dreaming.   This is the season of death and slumber. 

Winter death magic, though, has a power that is uniquely its own.   Everything seems to be dead.  The sleep seems eternal - somewhere at the end of January, even folks like me will begin to ask when do we get to spring? will there be any warmth anymore? It seems like life will freeze forever - that there will never another spring, another warm day, another flower blossom. 

Winter death magic brings a deep sleep over the earth - and it looks a lot like permanent death. But it isn't. 

But there will be.  Oh, there will be!  The magic of winter death is that it brings life - whenever all the earth reduces itself down to its most basice elements, it gives rise to power - the same power that Dylan Thomas described when he said: 

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer. The force that drives the water through the rocks drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams turns mine to wax." 

This winter death magic subjects us all to its icy grip - but inside its grip, in a deep sleep, we are renewed again like the flowers that spring up from the thawed humid group in springtime.  Just as in life - when we experience the end of it - we can be assured that the winter death magic that has taken our body will once again renew us; in some other form or field - forever.