Saints are not saints by chance, nor by choice, but by necessity — because there is a hunger in their soul which can not be satisfied by anything less than the divine.
~ from THE HUNGER OF THE SOUL by Nancy Pope Mayorga
But, for me, winter has an even greater gift to give. It comes when the sky is clear, the sun brilliant, the trees bare, and the first snow yet to come. It is the gift of utter clarity. In winter, one can walk into woods that had been opaque with summer growth only a few months earlier and see the trees clearly singly and together, and see the ground that they are rooted in.