We all experience winter differently, responding to these colder days according to our own dispositions. Some love the weather in its frosty flurries and rainy rantings, whilst others remain determinedly indoors to escape the chill sting of this seasonal sojourner.  This winter, we look forward to again hearing the roar at the MCG and the rugged homecoming hymns of victory.  To visiting the NGV and pubs and restaurants and seeing musicals, our gatherings careful and convivial with QR codes and pen and paper sign-ins for days and nights abroad in our metropolis.

At night I listen to the pounding on the tin roof, small fists of fury, punching out a percussive rhythm. The gutters gush and gurgle as a rumble, like a giant awakening, shakes the birds out of the trees. A neon slit of lightning rents the sky where dirty grey clouds hover like unsaid threats. The great blue bath of Port Phillip Bay has been mischiefed into an angry rink of spit and roil. Small boats in marinas clank, schools of fish hide and the last gold of autumn is but a bittersweet memory. The dancing froth on summer waves is now the vengeful spume of winter.

Hailstones, sharps as pins, are hurled from above. The city skyline is shrouded by drizzle; its sharp lines washed away, its glass towers now icy stalagmites piercing a sulky sky. The Eureka Tower is but a distant wet obelisk. An armada of angry clouds banks on the horizon ready to play havoc with bus timetables and travel times. Cars slow down to a wet crawl and wipers dance crazily on windscreens. Pedestrians skitter across at traffic lights. I catch the tram home and feel again the peculiar fug of wet blazer and damp scarf and the general drear and dampness of the travelling public eager to get home and warm up.

However, we recognise winter as a season with its own consolations and an interiority denied us in brighter and longer hours. I burrow into books and enjoy their company; their words provoking thought or enlarging the heart and unfreezing the icy splinter of indifference. These words are being “taken in”, “interiorised”, “germinated” to come to fruition in a later season. In this fallow time a new chapter is being written. Hidden things are happening; resolve and resolution are being fashioned. This is this winter’s tale. And we know that the faithful cycle of seasons will restore our equilibrium when the warmer months come again. We know a certain constancy in the repetition of these times and we know that we will endure again as we have done in the past.

Sometimes, though, some of us will experience a winter of the heart, a season of desolation, not too distant from the dark night of the soul. It may happen through abandonment or rejection or an accumulation of slights and sorrows. It may be a change in our emotional landscape where certainties become chimeras; where all we have known is suddenly open to question, when doubt or despair block out the sun. It may just be that the grey days tend to grey our mood and we feel stuck. During this time, it is wise to seek counsel and sometimes it is prudent to take time to withdraw from the fray temporarily. Sometimes we have to hug ourselves, take time-out, slowly soothe ourselves into new ways of being and doing. We must sit on the sidelines waiting for the right moment for the sun to come out in our lives again, while seeking the wisdom and warmth of those who know our hearts. Now, in this season of discontent, we wait for things to return to normal, or the new normal, so that our lives are back on track. We may have changed, adjusted, compromised, sought to be kinder in a world that has been forced to think more seriously than ever as to how we rub along together, human to human. We may have done some serious auditing of our lives or some gratifying soul-searching because we seek other answers.

The words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson from the poem Ulysses encapsulates a positive collective response to the experience of Covid and its impact on our global community.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

That which we are, we are. This is where we are called to be our better selves for the good of all. We have proven we can do this. Together, we can all be of one equal temper of heroic hearts – being cheerful for children, finding grace notes in the gloom, watching our words and how we use them, being steadfast and constant and simply enduring as we understand that this, our collective response, will be the story of the years. Last year we were weakened by time and fate, but we had the heart to get through those dark days.

We did not yield.

As we approach the feast of the Sacred Heart, I am reminded how often the typed words scared heart comes up in student work because spell check or Grammarly will not pick this up and proper proofreading seems to be a thing of the past. It’s the same with definitely and defiantly and it’s and its is a national disgrace! But spelling errors can be a conduit to other thoughts and so I look at the Sacred Heart/scared heart dichotomy and wonder how we can overcome our scared hearts, so they become sacred.

Our winter hearts, seasonally or metaphorically, may be scared, frozen, lukewarm, half-hearted, disheartened, downhearted. What can we do to get our hearts warmed up and throbbing with the sacred? We can look beyond ourselves, find some small good to do for others and pray for a change of heart. We can enlarge our hearts by listening to others, taking the time to share different perspectives, and responding to others in a heartfelt way. Then our hearts will thaw, and other hearts will be drawn to us and we will no longer be small s scared, but part of Jesus’ big S Sacred Heart, with his everlasting heart beating in love for us. This is the conversion we need, metanoia, the defrosting of the frozen heart and the finding of the fruitful heart.

Again, this winter, we’ll endure with robust hearts. We will not yield to the grey, misanthropic and doom-laden or the seasonal sadness that can cut us off from others. Individually and communally, we know that spring, heralded by the arrival of that first small cluster of jonquils, is just around the corner.

Our hearts will go on!

By Ann Rennie

Ann’s new book “Blessed: Meditations on a Life of Small Wonders” interweaves past and present to create a potpourri of essays that are part memoir, part meditation, celebrating a life full of little asides of joy and small wonders. It will be published in August and can be pre-ordered from Laneway Press.