November — The Clear Window of Winter
As November unfolded, the leaf began to turn, earth receding into her winter sleep cycle, another tender moment of time sleeping and laying bare her gifts to the exposure of the elements. Deep in her roots she nurtures her seeds and blesses us with the clear window of winter, where we can see across the landscape that which was not apparent to us, hidden in the deep recesses. We can curl up around the warmth of a fire and fold into the slumber.
Yet across the evening sky, we experience winter sunsets low on our horizon and the cycle of the moon casting her sensual light, holding our dreams in her Milky Way, illuminating the shadows of the darkness to show us a way. Holding her space in the constellations, she bares light to us. The colours change, allowing something more exposed and truthful to open up to us: a flickering and naked truth, spherical tones and a raw spiritual truth.
There is something particular about this clear window of winter. As the leaves fall and the landscape becomes more exposed, our view changes. We begin to see across spaces that were previously obscured, discovering details that had remained hidden in the fullness of the seasons. There is a particular clarity in this bareness, an invitation to look again. What appears to recede is not necessarily lost; deep within the roots, life continues to nurture what has yet to emerge. Winter becomes a place of quiet preservation, where the earth gathers herself beneath the surface.
The winter sky brings another dimension to this landscape. The low sunsets, the crescent moon and the constellations offer a different kind of visibility. Light and darkness meet along the horizon, while the moon holds her place above us. Her changing presence offers a sense of continuity, illuminating the shadows without removing their mystery. There is a rawness to these colours, an openness in the way the natural world lays itself bare.
On an evening walk in the last few days, at the first visibility of the crescent moon, ‘Folding Into You’ was born from these atmospheric observations.
The skies were a palette of changing tones of burned orange and the landscape was silhouetted as the crescent moon slipped into earth with the drifting dusk, laying bare her colours. A single bird flew on the wing and the owl emerged wisely in the final rest, and the deer and wild horses called to each other, gathering for the journey into the night and resting in their keep.
The wild evening brings us back to a world that continues beyond our own immediate experience. The single bird, the owl, the deer and the wild horses belong to rhythms of time, season and belonging that unfold without explanation. Their movements and calls seem to hold an instinctive understanding of the changing world around them. There are moments when we become quiet enough to witness these natural realities, and perhaps to recognise something of ourselves within them.
Particular atmospheres and natural world realities evoke time and truth in the natural world. Their secrets awaken in the wavering keep of life itself and the wild signs align expressive connections and emotions.
Perhaps exposure is not simply the removal of protection; it can also be the beginning of truth, connection and surrender. As the natural world lays bare her colours, we may find ourselves looking more honestly at what lies beneath our own surfaces. There is something about this passage into winter that allows us to see differently, to become more receptive to what was already there but not yet apparent to us.
Folding Into You
‘Folding Into You’ invites the variable colour signatures in its content, as there are several landscapes within the lyric.
The first is human connection and the vulnerability of new love: desire, tenderness, uncertainty and the risk of being truly seen; a connection to another without disguise.
The second is separation and two souls reaching across time and the ache of distance. Two people separated by circumstances, yet something continues to reach between them.
The third is the raw colours of the natural and spiritual worlds we are participating in. The movement almost feels cosmic, with a passage through light and darkness, through the physical and the unknown. Nature is not merely illustrating the emotion; it merges with it.
The lyric carries something of the atmosphere in which it came into being: its changing colours, its movement between exposure and shelter, presence and distance, light and darkness. Yet it is not confined to that evening or to one interpretation. Its landscapes remain open, allowing different experiences and emotions to find their place within it.
I would like to think you can find your own journey within the spaces of this lyric.
Thank you,
Michèle
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Michèle Keatley
Lyricist | Blubellwood Blog
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