I’ve had a lot of time to be quiet and think last month, starting with a week of being “snowed in” after the big snowfall.

I’ve always heard that wintertime is a time to eat root vegetables and soups and drink warm beverages in order to give our bodies a rest after a year of hard work during the warmer weather. If we are to learn anything from the trees and wildlife, wintertime is a time to “restock the warehouse,” to give our bodies and minds a rest in order to be ready for the next spring.

For me, wintertime is for reading, knitting, mending and baking cookies. As long as there are home-baked cookies in the cookie tin, Allen’s happy.

Winter is also a time of introspection. Our world is in a particularly chaotic state right now, and normal folks like us are trying to figure out how to not only interpret the picture, but also how to fit into that picture.

What can each of us do to make the world a better place when it all seems to be going to “hell in a hand basket?” It would be great if someone from “on high” would give us a specific directive.

I was just about to type in the words “but that’s not happening,” only to think that maybe that’s not true. Maybe we are getting a quiet message telling us what each of us can do to make the world a better place, one that we can only hear when we are quiet and still.

The message we need to hear is not coming from the internet or the media; it comes from deep down inside.

Read this quote from Albert Einstein, and then take a few minutes to just sit. Listen to the rain, or the wind blowing outside, or the sound of the squirrel running through the leaves, or the sound of the old dog breathing behind the woodstove.

Think about the old oak tree standing tall beside the house, and try to stand tall with it. From whence does the tree get its nourishment?

From the earth.

Imagine the strength of the earth flowing up through the soles of your feet, and be filled. Let this winter be a time to restock the warehouse, to give you energy in the coming year to make the world a better place.

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. [One] experiences [oneself] . . . as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of [one’s] consciousness. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

– Albert Einstein