Hopelessness is like getting your skin wet and exposed in winter – all the heat leaches out of you, and the ice finds your heart, and that is that. But on solstice night, I heard the faint hooting of the owl. Even more than that, I heard the promise of renewal whispered in the tones of his call. Perhaps I heard him because I had lived through a half century of winters, and my ears were open to a simple faith that winter ends and hope lives.

Hope is not a gift we can sustain simply by our own will. Hope is something we need to hear from outside ourselves sometimes. Like the fire needs the help of a branch to grow its warmth, we need a voice sometimes, or a sight, or visitor, to fan the flicker in our hearts when faith grows dim. On solstice, the voice came to me in the call of the owl, but nature has endless other voices that speak of hope: the sound of water to a thirsty creature, the breath of sunshine on a cold one, the call of kin and kind to one who is lost.

SUSAN CHERNAK MCELROY

Why Buffalo Dance: Animal and Wilderness

Meditations Through the Seasons