The warmth of sun in Winter.
Such a simple concept. I never knew there was a word for it. But random scrolling through the internet, rewards me at times with new vocabulary to describe feelings I have enjoyed that remained nameless for years.
It is a new word to describe a sensation that while particular to Winter, is a sentiment I experience elsewhere. A feeling that stands out in a sea of other feelings, to carve the moment in time into something solid due to the unexpected nature of the experience.
Apricity is one of those feelings. It is cold, dreary and bone chilling, but for this moment when the sun lights you up and your whole being is warmed by the experience. Allowing for some new sensations to come forward, whereas just moments before, your entire being was chilled into a quiet, stoic submission.
Sunshine can do that for you...on any day really. But having experienced apricity on many occasions, it leaves its mark, it brings forward a feeling of peace and calm, a moment of grace in an otherwise cold world that just moments before left you with a feeling of steely solitude.
There is something about being warmed by the basking light of the sun in Winter. The way the heat touches your face, blushing its beams upon you, that always leaves me feeling blessed and favored. In a world full of icy chaos, there you are standing alone, and just for a moment, the light, the heat, is bestowed unto you.
It changes you...if you are present enough to be present for it.
There are so many things in this life that shut us down, stave us off, curtail connection with the beings about us. But for me, the experience of apricity is one of those moments where you can be caught in the much larger sense of living, you transcend if you will, the daily grind and reactivity of your life, and you are transmuted into someone new, if only for a moment.
Whenever I have experienced apricity, I swear I feel the love of God. It is in these moments where I feel closest to the Divine. Like perhaps there really is a direct link between the two worlds and for me, in that moment, I just happen to be standing where that link is experienceable.
I am a fan of any moment that gives rise to the momentary pleasure of being completely present in my life. Sometimes this simple, yet profound, experience is so overwhelming that I am forever changed. I leave my experience of apricity and arrive to some new version of myself that was not accessible to me just moments before. It is like the glow of the sun, in a frozen wasteland, comes for me, warms my insides with a glow that remains long after the experience.
As I write, I flash back to the times in my life that I remember this experience, this apricity occurring in my life. And am amazed that through all the drama and trauma of living, I still remember each experience and if I close my eyes, I can relive the lighting of my soul. The shriveled and under used parts of my most basic nature rejuvenated and reinvigorated with the life giving warmth of the sun’s glow in Winter.
Sigh.
Oh, to be sitting frigid on a park bench in Winter, and to be lit up with apricity. Touched once more by the Divine operating in my life just outside my immediate awareness but always available to me if I am willing to just slow down long enough to drop into the center of my life.
