After many cloudy snowy days this past week I was happy to greet the sun this morning.
Good Day Sunshine
The landscape, is still beautiful, with white icing covering the evergreens, and many bare tree branches also covered with snow. As the sun shines, more branches and twigs lose their blanket of snow. But I am reveling in seeing blue sky, bright white snow, blue shadows, and bright golden glistening orbs reflecting off the snow.
The birds are busily filling up on bird seed at my feeders today. With the temperatures heading down for most of the week, I wonder how many will be out and about as the temperature plunges.
I took a walk in the neighborhood yesterday afternoon and couldn’t stop marveling at the beauty all around me. The week before Christmas is usually a busy week for me. But not this year. Yesterday we bought groceries for the week and planned our family Christmas Eve meals (soup and chili), and the few gifts we buy for the grandkids are ready to wrap. Yesterday I finished up the house cleaning I wanted to get done and today I’m finishing up my laundry for the week.
Tomorrow morning I go in for my second cataract surgery. It will be good to get it done and to spend a quiet week, listening to music and sitting in front of the fireplace downstairs. Are you able to relax and enjoy this beautiful pre-Christmas week too?
Solstice Time
We are just 2 days away from winter solstice, turning the corner from the darkest days of the year towards the light. Though it will take awhile to notice the change, I celebrate the growing light that will soon be coming.
The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.
— Gary Zukav
Last year I participated in a DNA research project sponsored by Mayo Clinic. When I got my results I was surprised and delighted to learn that I am about 6% Ashkenazi Jewish. Given my very protestant upbringing and what I thought was totally German ancestry, it was a wonderful surprise to learn that my history was more diverse than I thought. Tonight I think I will light some candles to celebrate the coming light and my Jewish ancestors.
That’s what Hanukkah is about: trying to survive the darkness on the far-fetched hope there’s still some life and light left in the universe. It’s more than just a religious story. The days have been growing shorter, imperceptibly but inescapably darker…. Heading into the night of the winter solstice, every spiritual tradition has some kind of festival of light. We’re all just whistling in the dark, hoping against hope that someone up there will see these little Hanukkah candles and get the hint.
— Lawrence Kushner
Wishing you a beautiful coming of the light and a joyous holiday season.
May you walk in beauty.
You can see our house behind the trees on the left side of this photograph
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