Every year, nature quietly takes us through a moral lesson that has much to teach us about how we might relate to certain of the more dispiriting and despair-inducing moments in our own development. Beginning in mid-October in the northern hemisphere, the temperature drops, the nights draw in, the earth turns cold and hard, fog lies low over the land and rain drives hard across the austere, comatose grey-brown landscape. There is nothing immediate we can hope for; now we have nothing to do but wait, with resigned patience, until something better shows up.每年，大自然都会悄悄地给我们上一堂品德课，这堂课教给我们如何应对自身成长中某些沮丧和绝望的时刻。从北半球的10月中旬开始，气温下降，夜幕越来越早地降临，地面变得寒冷而坚硬，雾气低沉地笼罩着大地，大雨滂沱撒向这片荒凉，了无生机的灰褐色土地，短期内看不到任何希望，我们没有什么可做的，只能带着不甘的耐心等待，直到更好的东西出现。Far more than we can generally accept, our minds too have cycles. We cannot be permanently fruitful or creative, excited or open. There are necessary times of retrenchment when, whatever we might desire, there seems no alternative but to stop. We can no longer be productive; we lose direction and inspiration. We are immovably numb and sterile. 更让我们难以接受的是，我们的大脑也有周期。我们不可能永远保持富有成果或创造力、兴奋或开朗，有一些必要的紧缩时间，这时无论我们希望什么，似乎都别无选择只能暂停，我们不再高效，我们失去了方向和灵感，我们陷入了无止境的麻木。It can be easy to panic: why should such a paralysed and detached mood have descended on our formerly lively minds? Where have all our ideas and hopes gone? What has happened to our previous animation and gladness?这很容易让人感到恐慌：为什么这样一种麻痹和游离的状态会降临到我们从前非常活跃的头脑中？我们所有的想法和希望都到哪里去了？我们从前的活力和快乐发生了什么？We should, at such times, take reassurance from the late November landscape. Certainly, things are lifeless, cold and in suspension. But this is not the end of the story; the earth is like this: not as a destination but as a phase. The deadness is a prelude to new life; the fallow period is a guarantor of fecund days to come. 在这种时候，我们可以从11月下旬的景象中寻得安慰，的确，一切都没有生机，冰冷，处于暂停的状态，但这并不是故事的结局。地球变成这样，并不是它的结局，而只是一个阶段，死气沉沉是新生命的前奏，休耕期是未来丰饶日子的保证。All living organisms need to recharge themselves; old leaves have to give way; tired limbs must rest. The dance and ferment could not go on. It may look as if nothing at all is happening, as though this is a trance without purpose. Yet, deep underground, at this very moment, nutrients are being gathered, the groundwork for future ebullience and dynamism is being laid down, another summer is very slowly collecting its strength.所有的生物都需要充能，老的叶子须得让路，疲惫的肢体则要休息，雀跃和骚动不能继续下去，表面上可能看起来好像什么都没有发生，好像这样的休眠状态没有任何意义。然而，在地下深处，此时此刻，营养物质正在积蓄，为未来的冲力和劲头打下基础，另一个夏天正在非常缓慢地积攒它需要的力量。As nature seeks to tell us, we cannot permanently be in flower. We need moments of repose and confusion. There is nothing to fear. Things will re-emerge. We should make our peace with our own midwinters – and lean on nature’s wise accommodation to strengthen us in our pursuit of serenity and patience.正如大自然试图告诉我们的那样，我们不可能永远都在盛开着，我们需要有休息和困惑的时刻，这没什么好怕的，一切都会回来。我们应该与自身的隆冬和平相处，并学习大自然明智地适应来帮助我们追求宁静与耐心。
