Winter Sowing - A New Year Dawns

Winter: Week 1 2025 - On Mountaintop Sunrises and the Courage to Grow Wild Again

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

The startling brightness of the rising fiery winter sun finally wins, and we avert our burning and delighted eyes. We have been standing, and watching. Waiting in the frigid temperatures to catch the first sunrise of the new year on Flagstaff Mountain.

The dawn finally breaks, all eyes gazing to the east as we watch the fast-moving clouds shape-shift and change color. The burnished orange and pink edges of the sun rushing to once again make its mark. We sit or stand. A handful of dedicated warriors wrapped in blankets and duvets, with coffee flasks or maybe something stronger, and smile in the quietness as we greet this new day. I wonder what the next turn around its orbit will have in store for us all.

My fingers, still stiff from the cold despite my gloves, remind me of how far I've come in recovery. I breathe deeply, the mountain air sharp and cleansing in my lungs. There's something sacred about sharing silence with strangers. All of us drawn here by the same primal desire to witness beginnings.

This is not how the day started. A spilled coffee on a bedroom nightstand at 5 a.m. Yelling, cursing... a stained carpet, a ruined beloved book. Pascal angrily lamenting as we jump up and start cleaning, "... this is a great start to the new year!"

I watch his familiar movements as we mop up the mess, remembering how tenderly those same hands helped me during my recovery, how they've been steady when mine shook with pain or frustration. Two years of him witnessing my struggle, never turning away from the darkness that sometimes engulfed me.

A short while later, while driving to see the sunrise, I jest, "Hey... if this is going to be a heck of a year, there are going to be some spills along the way! That's just how it goes." He softens and grins. "Well, if this is the worst it gets, we are already winning!" We drive on up the mountain giggling, his hand finding mine across the center console, a silent affirmation of our shared journey.

The night before, we'd discussed 'not' heading out at the crack of dawn to see the new year in. We were cozy in bed, about to put out the light, and the warm duvet was imploring us to stay. No! We had deemed 2025 the year of crazy... and crazy wasn't going to get started if we didn't seize the day! The alarm was set.

"The year of crazy" – our shorthand for pushing boundaries, for saying yes instead of no, for seeking wonder instead of comfort. For me, it means finally facing the fear that's kept me tethered to safe spaces since the accident.

I'll admit, resistance tried hard. She once again made her appeal to cuddle the dog and stay small, but I'm tired of letting her win. That voice of doubt has become so familiar – she whispers of pain that might return, of falls that could happen, of a body that might betray me again. She is the shadow that grew during those first weeks after my accident, when every movement was measured in careful, deliberate steps.

Resolutions have never been my kind of thing, but this year, I've resolved to keep meeting her where she is and finally reforge my own path. The last few years have gone by in a heartbeat and also an eternity. Since the accident, I'm acutely aware that I've lost my sense of self, and even after putting many of the pieces back together, there's still an emptiness, a longing to be filled.

* * *

Two years ago, as I rehabbed from my broken back, I planted a garden. Each morning, I would make my way outside with determination, working through the discomfort as my body healed. I pressed seeds into dark soil, finding a quiet rhythm in the work as I tended to new life, a parallel to my own gradual recovery.

I watched the most beautiful flowers bloom into existence, and by mid-summer, I reaped an abundance of delicious vegetables. Utterly proud of my achievement. In many ways, it saved me. The tiny seeds I nurtured and willed to grow through the many months of pain, loss, and defeat showed me that we are hardwired to live. In all its messiness, I saw in those seedlings the strongest desire to survive and spring forth. And in that year, that's what I did. I mended my broken body and made it stronger than ever before.

Alas, while the physical me healed that summer, when the fall fell and the winter arrived, the inside me grew dark again. The murky shadow that had appeared a few weeks into my accident cast once more a larger shape. It dimmed my joy, and even when the next spring burst into being, I held back and followed, or maybe chose to lose myself in my suffering.

The garden went wild, left to take care of itself this season. The weeds were the winners. They took the most light and filled any space they could... not unlike my thoughts, which had grown increasingly untended. A tightly woven carpet of doubt sewn down deep and wide. Pascal would sometimes stand at the kitchen window, looking out at the overgrown tangle, his eyes then drifting to me with quiet concern. Neither of us acknowledging aloud how the abandoned garden reflected something deeper.

It's a battle I know is mine to meet alone. I've tried a litany of remedies for this creeping and knotted malaise, all with the same outcome. The numbness continues, the apathy, the detachment. Except for those moments when I let the robin's call in at dusk, or note the fox's footprints in fresh snow, or marvel at the hoarfrost on the boxwood. It's then that I know there's still lightness inside me, and I'm not completely lost and broken.

Scientists have long since proven that spending time in nature heals and calms. Unsurprising. We were once mammals born wild. Intuitively, I know reconnecting with the natural world is the medicine I need. It's been calling me back, and I'm finally listening. It beckoned me to the mountain this morning. A seed ready to be sown.

The sun now fully risen, Pascal wraps his arm around my shoulder and we stand in silence for a moment longer before turning to descend. The first light catches the frost on the rocks, transforming ordinary stone into something momentarily sacred.

Pascal's question comes quietly, barely disturbing the morning stillness... "What are you thinking about?" I breathe in the crisp air, feeling surprisingly light despite the cold. "Just this moment," I say, gesturing to the vast expanse before us. "The beginning of something new."

We start down the path, our footsteps crunching rhythmically on the frozen ground. There's a certainty in me that wasn't there when we climbed up in darkness. The year stretches ahead like an unwritten page, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I'm eager to fill it.

Maybe my wintering hasn't been wasted after all. Maybe this darkness has been preparing me for something more vibrant than I could have grown before. Winter, I realize now, isn't just an ending — it's a preparation, and the true gift of this first dawn isn't just the spectacle of light, but the reminder that even the longest night eventually yields. The earth needs this dormant time, just as I have. What emerges after winter won't be the same as what faded in fall, but something new, shaped by both darkness and the promise of return.

As the trail winds back toward home, I carry this first sunrise with me — not just plans for seedlings and soil, but for the wilder gardens of a life reclaimed. As the new year stretches before me, as vast as the Colorado landscape, I make a quiet promise to follow where nature's wild wisdom leads.