What is Winter?

The signs of Winter are more present than ever...Bozeman has received a dumping of snow in the last few days. Although it is not quite to the extent of biblical plague or mythical proportions, it carries symbolic weight. Winter is the season of purgation; the earth is cleansed from all of the refuse of yesteryear and it clears the old evils in preparation for new life. Because Winter is between Autumn (characterized by chaos and mourning for the loss of of verdant life) and Spring (representing regeneration and vitality and original purity--Eden), it seems that it must be a season of profound ambiguity. Everything in the symbolic world is waiting and inbetween. Some authors have made this winter period into the reign of shadowy villians. The White Witch, in Lewis' Narnia, has dominion over this period of time. As long as she holds power, the seasons will not change and moral uncertainty has usurped the natural cycle of regeneration. She is accompanied by wolves--an animal which feeds in a pack, and whose realm is found in the now "evil" forest--evil because it is a state of death. Winter may be an arena which is initially blurry because it is in a state of asleep; However, in a sense, this ambiguity allows it to be tyrranized by the dead--by the world of dreams. In Narnia, this is a world of prolonged nightmare awaiting the waking by a child's turn of a knob, a Lion's blood, and a broken table.