wintergray is the final song in the sequence of four songs that, collectively, form the EP Completing the Whole. It was, however, the first of the four to be written.

Lyrically, the idea came from a conversation I had about gray Syracuse skies many years ago with a former work colleague named Gina Mushinsky. She jokingly suggested Crayola should have a crayon named Syracuse Gray, and the idea stuck with me all these years.

Each song in the Completing the Whole sequence, as I said in my exposition of springsong, attempts to explain what the particular season is trying to say and how we should incorporate that knowledge into our spiritual practices. Spring is a celebration of rebirth, which should lead us to the spiritual practice of celebration; summer is a celebration of life, which should lead us to the spiritual practice of living in the moment; autumn is a celebration of abundance followed by death, which should lead us to the spiritual practice of reflecting on our own mortality.

But winter? Poor misunderstood winter. As a season, it has its beauty. But it is cold, often colorless, and seemingly depressing. The weather often forces us to change or even abandon plans. Travel becomes difficult, sometime even impossible. At best, we enjoy it in outdoor pursuits like skiing, snowshoeing, or snowmobiling. (Which brings to mind the mantra for the season all runners know: “There is no such thing as bad weather. Just inappropriate clothing.”) Or we stay indoors, woodshedding, enduring it. But mostly, we curse it. We want to wish it away, to flee from it, either through thoughts of warmer, carefree, easier times or by travel to actual warmer climes. Some even find ways to block it out altogether.

But that is not the point of winter at all.

Around the time Mark Chatwin and I mixed wintergray, a friend of mine posted on Facebook the following quote from an author named Katherine May. Taken from her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, the words sum up perfectly what I am trying to express in the song’s lyrics:

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”

Instead of cursing winter for not being summer, and trying to live our lives like it doesn’t exist, we need to ignore the busy tendencies of the modern world as best we can and slow everything down. Because winter is a celebration of rest and of going with the flow, leading us to the the spiritual practice of silence, contemplation, and preparation.

Or, as I have said for many years, winter is God’s way of telling you to read a book.

Lost inside this December day
wintergray filling my soul
on the northern winds the wintering
turns again, completing the whole

Watch the evening fade away
nothing lasts, not even this day
but there is peace here, time to rest a while,
for the time of trial coming this way.

CHORUS
Perfect sunlight dancing behind the clouds
above the frozen ground silent below
But I will stay here deep within the monochrome
this moment hold like a leaf in the snow

Why should I wish this all away,
fly far away, chasing the sun?
Or numb myself some other way
hide away from what I’ve become?

CHORUS       

So I will save my strength until the future comes
and it always comes, ready or no
feel the season move beneath my feet,
now I am complete like evening’s last glow.

Lost inside this December day
wintergray filling my soul
On the northern winds the wintering
turns again, completing the whole

CHORUS

Perfect sunlight dancing behind the clouds …

LYRIC VIDEO
https://youtu.be/P7aHBuxYftc

DOWNLOAD:
Bandcamp:https://brucepegg.bandcamp.com/track/wintergray
iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/wintergray-single/1784394335
Amazon:https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DPS36446

 STREAM:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6N2e68Ki6v5wCSbiBXMGUb
Pandora: https://pandora.app.link/qlj1fwFoMPb
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bruce-pegg/wintergray
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/wintergray-single/1784394335
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nrZOc3Kn3_E&si=KfvndMj0BIe19yH9
Deezer: https://deezer.page.link/KpHzWCY9k6WMKpLj8
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/artist/bruce-pegg-42576563/songs/wintergray-302788159/

Written in Cazenovia, NY, between January and March 2023; recorded between November 2023 and November 2024. Released December 21, 2024.

Bruce Pegg (vocals, 12-string)
Mark Chatwin (keyboards)
Will Pegg (electric)
Tom Westcott (bass)

Produced by Mark Chatwin with Bruce Pegg
Art by Ann Stevens