From under a blazing aspen: coping with the bleakness of winter and the soul.

It happened again this year. It is almost as predictable as the seasons of the year. Winter is a Canadian reality that is preceded by another Canadian season called fall. In my calendar, fall is a distinct season from the one that precedes it, called autumn. This gives the Webber calendar five seasons instead of the four found on the lesser calendars of most people.

Fall is absolutely the worst season of the year. Autumn is the best. Autumn is filled with bright days of glorious colours, the invigorating sounds of migrating birds and the wonderful final harvest of bountiful gardens. And then comes fall, clad in its naked trees, blustery winds, drizzling grey rains, dead grass and rotting vegetation. One could say fall is for the birds, except any bird with an ounce of brains has fled south to escape it. Ahead looms what seems like 10 months of winter followed by two more months of hard sledding. It depresses me.

It really does depress me. I don't know if it is the lowering light conditions, the sight of dead and dying things lying around smelling of decay or if it is the fact that fall is when I have to pull my fishing boat out of the water. Whatever it is, fall coincides with a depression that embraces my soul each year. It happened again this year.

Something else happened again this year. I went for my usual fall forage through the forest back of where we live. I was trying to find some sanity to get through the horrid depression. I don't know what it is I am looking for in this meandering through summer's graveyard, but I always seem to do it. I set out with my wool cap pulled down over my ears, my warmest wool mackinaw buttoned up tightly, my glasses streaked with grey fog and my teeth set in grim determination. I wandered around blinded by the darkness of the black hole of depression, my only comfort being that others have gone before me. Others like Winston Churchill who often wrestled with the "black dog," as he called it.

This year, my black wanderings engaged me in a strange encounter with nature's pulpit. Somewhere in the back and beyond, there is a small depression with a marvellous aspen tree growing in it. I noticed the tree from the midst of my mental fog and felt drawn to it as though it were the tree of life. The depression in the landscape must have sheltered it from the frost and the wind for it was still fully clad in dazzling yellow, trembling, heartshaped leaves. It was an oasis of colour in a desert, grey-brown landscape.

I eased myself down the slope and sat under the aspen. It was as bright under the fluorescent yellow foliage as a midsummer's day. I sat in silence, enjoying the bright colour and the refreshing rustle of leaves. Time lost all meaning and a curious feeling began to seep into my being. I caught myself humming a strain of praise. The blackness that was covering me seemed to lift from my countenance like the early morning mist from a lake embraced with the warmth of the rising sun.

It was a grand Presbyterian experience for, as I was bathed in this release, the words of Paul came to me, proclaimed from a pulpit draped with a fall of blazing leaves, blazing but not consumed. "Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you" (Philippians 4:8-9). Words of a man imprisoned to a people persecuted. Hmmm!

Some people with challenging lives seem to live them easily. Others find living with their challenges difficult. Depression is often the difference. There are all kinds of depression and informed theories about the causes. There is also important medical help that can heal or, at least, ease the struggle. What came to me from the proclamation under the blazing aspen bush was an awareness of how much a sense of space can influence how I am feeling, both spiritually and emotionally. It is a liberating discovery that, at least partially, I have some power over my times of depression.

For me, at least, this control has to do with deliberately placing myself in places and spaces where colours and light and people and awareness point me to God who is lovingly active in my life. It doesn't take much sometimes. Perhaps placing myself under the brightness of an aspen tree will be the catalyst one time. Perhaps placing myself in the brightness of a fellowship of praise will be the catalyst the next. Whatever the case, as I face the coming bleakness of winter, I am going to look intentionally for these places and spaces. And, I am going to rest and ruminate there for awhile. Here comes one now. It's Sunday morning.

David Webber is a minister of the Cariboo Presbyterian Church, a house church ministry in the Cariboo District of British Columbia.

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