I enjoy reading Addie Zierman’s blog as she wrestles through new phases in her spiritual journey. I especially resonated with her recent post about spiritual seasons in our lives, and I want to share a portion of her thoughts with you. To read the whole article (well worth it!) go to her site, Addie Zierman: Faith Reimagined. “…I went searching the Internet other day for other ways of marking the seasons, which is what I do when I’m not satisfied with the language I have. And I came across the six-season cycle of the North American Cree. It’s a cycle that includes Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter of course…but that adds two additional season: Midiskāw or the “Freeze Up” of ice and Minoskamin, or “Break Up” of ice. It makes sense. The Cree are a People whose world was, at one time, tied to the river and to their ability to travel on it. They were once a migratory people, traveling with the seasons and with the animals, so of course they understood that between fall and winter there is the season of “Freeze Up,” where the water is changing, solidifying — neither open water nor sturdy ice, but something in between, something in process. Of course they knew that before the flowers and the berries and the drunken summertime…….