Winter Harmony- Welcome Hali Lynne Karla

The Winter Harmony blog series is our gift to our beautiful community to help inspire and support you to live in harmony with winter. Join us and some amazing guest bloggers M-F during the month of January. Click here to see all the Winter Harmony posts in one place.

Get your own Winter Harmony Mandala to bring a little peace and joy to your winter season this year and see what message it has for you.

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Winter Song

  

As a child, I remember a thrill that would course through my cells when that first autumn breeze whispered cooly, "Winter comes…."

 

In those moments, when the truth and balance of seasons and cycles permeates my understanding, silently, stretching into depths beyond words and story,

- in those moments, I am most Alive.

 

Feeling this way about winter often felt at odds with the sentiments of others.

It is apparent that Winter is misunderstood as just an inconvenience to endure.

And, on certain days, it feels that way

as we long for the sun's full attention to return.

 

In the midst of that ache, however,

lie moments of truth.

Moments of a deeper trust.

Moments of incomparable magnificence

and self-remembering awareness.

 

In the frost crystal grass kisses,

the crisp star-sparkling promises,

and softer, longer gestures of love and space shared

with each other.

 

This winter, this being,

is a vessel of retreat, rest, relief.

A time when our leaves fall to the ground,

leaving us naked to our simpler vulnerabilities and power,

pausing

to a magic that is timeless and unadorned…

 

like the tender silent morning after a fresh snow,

the emanating divinity of a wood stove,

or a simple cup of clean water sprinkled with dry leaves from seasons past.

 

It is a time carved out by nature for minimal distraction,

for redirecting our energy to the nurturance of what lies in the core of our roots,

for storytelling and listening,

for tending intimate crafts with our hands in circles of family,

for retrospective honoring, the work of grief,

the invocation of gardens yet to rise.

 

Winter is an invitation into a deeper ritual of self-knowing and potential,

to visit the parts that may seem stagnant or dry,

that have been overworked or taken for granted,

to visit them and offer the wise-way medicine of nature…

time, openness, pure presence.

 

In this, Winter IS harmonious,

wholistically in sync with all parts of our life-song being sung in round.

 

In this song, finding your own harmony,

within the offering of Winter,

is the very essence of sacred communion.

 

See{k}er. FEARLESS Painting created by Hali Karla. Acrylic. 23” x 35”.

 

 

 

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Hali Karla is a paint-slinging, word-wrangling, music-loving, earth-walking Artist devoted to communing with Creative Mystery through the intentional exploration of the river where spiritual practice joins creative process. She is deeply interested in how acts of personal prayer, intention and devotion can be amplified in creative connections and community-oriented vessels of support. This is the seed that started the Sacred Art of Women group, where Hali holds space for others to excavate their own stories, celebrate their innate wisdom, and develop an intention-centered creative practice from their own intrinsic connection to the Sacred ~ accessible both beyond and within ordinary daily life. With a background in performing & fine arts, as well as nursing, and a lifelong love affair with human resiliency and spiritually guided questions, she is fascinated by the divine wisdom of our bodies, the healing power of Presence to self and others, and the dynamic, continuous energetic exchange of All that is.

 

Hali considers herself blessed to live a creatively guided life in the inspiring mountains of Asheville, NC with her husband, who is also an artist & musician, and their joyful four-legged companions. She considers her home to be right where she is, in any moment she allows the sensational, sacred connection with Source to permeate her awareness and experience ~ and it is her deepest joy to inspire others to awaken and dwell in their own sense of divine wisdom and creative empowerment.

Visit her website,  www.halikarla.com