We set our clocks ahead an hour last Sunday. And as if on cue, the days are turning colder (from 18 degrees C to 3 degrees C inside of one week), the sky is a constant moult of grey clouds, and the days are shortening in an alarmingly accelerating manner. I’m trying to breathe deeply and not panic about the approaching winter doldrums. Oh, how I desperately need some light, or colour, or something else in my life. Otherwise, I am going to go all Ingmar Bergman like and that would be the last place I should go.
A while ago I was reading a blog entry, where the blogger posed a question to her readers on how to overcome winter doldrums. A good friend of mine decided to do the radical tour and head off to New Zealand for the next five months. Very nice idea, but not practical for those of us who can’t take a sabbatical from our professional or personal lives. The best way I can think of is to initiate various rituals or experiences that creatively stimulate our senses.
My theory is that the fundamental reason we feel depressed during the winter is due to a deprivation of our senses. We wear so many clothes that our movement is restricted: our skin literally curls/dries up with cold and lack of humidity: our sight is dimmed by insignificant lighting and drab colours: our tastebuds must suffice with processed or imported food: our hearing is muffled under layers of wool… I’m sure you get my meaning.
In the next days, I am going to try and come up with some practical suggestions about how to creatively incite our senses. Not in a fly-to-Hawaii way, but rather in a quiet, sensual, loving way.
I am going to include six senses: smell, sight, touch, hearing, and taste, as well as imagination. For, imagination when stirred up surely is the greatest sense of all.
What I’d like to do is try and experiment with are rituals or experiences that concentrate on one or two senses and not the whole spectrum. For example, doing something that excites your senses taste and smell and minimises sight and sound.
If you have some suggestions about how to do this, please send your ideas to me at virtualredtent (AT) yahoo (DOT) com.
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