It is autumn again, and almost winter. Just as the seasons return every year in their cycle, so the beliefs that come with them return with the same regularity. In my practice chair, but also in the street, in the shops and on the radio, I hear how the grey clouds, the dreary weather and the lack of sunshine are held responsible for how my fellow human beings feel in winter. Without hesitation, this trio is singled out as the merciless culprits, while the speaker cannot escape the grip of victimhood. Sometimes they become a quartet, and the low temperatures are blamed too. It is as if, like all-devouring parasites, they force the speaker's life energy down to the lower readings on the barometer of life. People long for spring as if it were a life-saving angel. If only autumn and winter would soon be over.
Professionally speaking, a remark like that triggers a reaction in me that also returns in cycles, and I feel invited to do something with it. Why is it that I don't experience the influence of the weather in that way? Why doesn't a dull grey day make me feel gloomy? At the same time, it takes me back to the time a radio station invited me to share my view on the winter blues that were going around. Back then I didn't yet feel ready to frame my view well. In the meantime I have grown, and now I enter into an experience of awareness together with the other person.
Today was another one of those ideal days. The cloud cover was dark grey. It was drizzling. The temperature was hovering around 8 to 9 degrees. A perfect moment to look at the sky. We opened the windows of the room. He opened one on the right and I opened one on the left. The fresh air rushed into the room straight away. Before our eyes lay a wide playing field of grey cloud. Wherever we looked.
‘What do you see when you look at the sky?’ I got exactly the answer I expected.
‘Everything is grey.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes, everything. It's dark.’
‘Is it equally grey everywhere?’
He observed willingly and attentively. With a faint hint of wonder, he discovered fifty shades of grey. Different shades, admittedly, from those described in the famous book of the same name. Not only grey. Shades of white, too.
‘It's the first time in my life that I've noticed this,’ he murmured, apparently surprised at his own powers of perception, with a question mark in his voice as to how on earth he could have missed this all those years.
That is how it goes with our inner clouds, our grey state of mind. When things are going a little less well, we tend to follow the darkest grey and extrapolate it to the whole, just as we do when we look at the cloud cover. We don't see the specks of light that are everywhere in so many nuances. Just as we project the long winter nights and the dark days onto the whole of winter. That is when you lose heart. We know that the sun is always shining behind the clouds, but we forget it. When we observe the dark clouds with more openness, we discover glimpses of this reality. Subtle at times, but perceptible all the same.
‘Do you understand?’ I asked him.
‘I think I understand, but I can't feel it yet.’ I could see from his whole being that this was true. His head was active, his feeling closed off. But not with a heavy lock. A gentle nudge would be enough.
‘What if, while you are observing, you breathe in the lighter spaces deeply? What would happen then?’ Automatically I stretched my arms out to the sides in a receptive gesture. My lungs opened as if by themselves and I breathed in powerfully, immediately followed by a deep sigh and a sense of relaxation in my body. He followed. He did the same. A small adjustment to his breathing in and out, and he was away. Silence descended upon us. Silence filled the room. A protective, safe, luminous layer surrounded us. We were one with that grey sky, which was now so much more. He sank in. Into himself. Into his being. Connected with himself. Within himself. No need to speak, no need to do anything. Simply being.
After a while he raised his gaze, like the lens of a camera slowly zooming in on something important. Fascinated, he took in a new spectacle.
‘Where is your attention going?’ I asked, noticing that my curiosity had won out over silence.
‘A watercolour. The sky is like a watercolour.’ He didn't need to tell me that he found the watercolour beautiful. It was obvious. His presence had changed. He looked happy. More at peace. We were silent.
‘Can you see the movement in the cloud cover too?’ It looks like one big grey mass, but besides the shades, the movement of life is always present. Even when winter seems dark and long, life keeps moving. Movement in the stillness, in reflection, in withdrawal. Only to unfold again within a few months. A few birds flew across our field of vision, as if they wanted to underline the movement even more.
‘It's been years since I last discovered something so beautiful and so important.’ I believed him.
And so we stood there. He at one window, I at the other. In silence. One with an experience. The grey cloud cover as a mirror of ourselves, with deep layers that bring us closer to ourselves. Meanwhile, the temperature in the room had dropped considerably. Unnoticed, without bothering us.
We could have stood there like that for another hour. Perhaps we did.
Hilde Van Bulck
Awareness Architect — Speaker — Writer — Systemic constellation facilitator and adviser
AMI Activator — Motivator — Inspirer
