Here, though outwardly quiet, winter is actually a time of enormous activity.  If little is visible on the surface, a great deal in going on underground.  Roots are lengthening.  Pale shoots are inching upward through frozen soil, forcing their way up toward light and air.  Embryo flower are forming, their cramped folds tucked inside tightly compressed buds.
This implicit burgeoning has a powerful symbolic resonance because it echoes our own pattern of change.  We, too, go through such periods.....That very fullness creates a pressure that can be experienced as pain.  Indeed, in medical terms pain is pressure.......
Experience is slowly pushing wisdom towards birth......
I have no idea how a plant perceives winter, but for people there is comfort in recognizing these times of slow, sometimes painful growth for what they are.......
Because our culture prizes the obvious, we experience our inner winter as empty waiting, frustrating and without fulfillment.
When we can calm down and cooperate, breathing into the stillness, we can listen and learn a lot faster. Blooming spring can't come until solemn winter has prepared the way.