Totally Opposite, Totally True: The Power of Paradox to Get Through Tough Times

In the northern hemisphere, today at 12:47pm EST is winter solstice — the precise moment when our half of the globe is tilted as far from the sun as it will go.

In the far north, this time of year can be a tough one to wade through. The days are short, the arc of daylight seems to barely rise above the horizon before ducking down again, and the sun often sits smothered behind a layer of clouds. Everything is stifled under snow and frost.

Using the metaphor of seasons to explore and clarify the human experience is not new by any means — but it is a powerful and useful way to understand the cycles of emotion that are a normal component of being alive.

Part of why the natural world works so well as a metaphor is that, like us, it is complex and cyclical, full of paradox. It allows us to hold seemingly opposite things in the same space at the same time, recognizing that both are true: The leaves that die and have fallen to the ground are actually nutrient for the soil that will allow new things to grow. Certain animals sleep through the season both because they need the rest and because they are conserving energy for a new season. Snow appears white to us on first glace, but if we look closely on a sunny winter day, what we see are actually millions of colors reflected and refracted.

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr describes paradox this way: “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may be another profound truth.”

We do not exist in an either/or universe. We live in a both/and world. Our struggles and deep grief are painful and nutrient for richer, healthier lives; our moments of stagnancy and (what feels like) zero forward movement or progress are sometimes also times of much-needed rest and preparation for the next transformation; and days or weeks that feel hopeless are simultaneously filled with promise. The seasons tell us: Where you are today is okay. Everything has its time.

Sometimes people ask me why I chose the name Winter Oak, and this is why: because Winter’s stillness calls me to recognize the Spring in everything. I look at a bare oak tree (my logo is an actual tree that lives by Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis, a huge oak that spans two lots), and I know what that living thing is made of — I see a sturdy trunk and know the roots go deep; I see the muscular branches that have withstood thousands of storms, droughts and diseases; I see the bird and squirrel nests and know that it is capable of nourishing and sustaining life; it is not without scars, sure, but it is full of stories, and what I see is something truly alive and undeniably beautiful.

I have been through many winters in my own life — actual and metaphorical — and in this work, I often meet people who are experiencing a winter of some sort in some part of their lives. Far from feeling defeated, I am profoundly hopeful in these encounters, because this is where we get to see all that we are capable of. Right now, it is dark. At 12:47pm, we are the farthest from the sun we could possibly be. But, you know, at 12:48pm, we start the journey back.