On winter and death

I suppose this post is a kind of add-on to my recent ruminations on watching. Winter is an obvious and natural metaphor for death. It can be difficult to get through this darkest time of year, and to think of coming out on the inevitable Other Side. How can we make it through this cold time, this lack of daylight, this frozen emptiness? I am inspired by my most recent read, the amazing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

'Now the twin leaves of the seedling chestnut oak on the Carvin's Cove path have dried, dropped, and blown; the acorn itself shrunk and sere. But the sheath of the stem holds water and the white root still delicately sucks, porous and permeable, mute. The death of the self of which the great writers speak is no violent act. It is merely the joining of the great rock heart of the earth in its roll. It is merely the slow cessation of the will's sprints and the intellect's chatter: it is waiting like a hollow bell with stilled tongue. Fuge, tace, quiesce. The waiting itself is the thing.'

Shhhh...the days are now growing longer. What do you make of this waiting? Are you afraid?