Wordless Wednesday - First Light

The Church of Winter Trees

It snowed steadily in the village yesterday. This morning, clouds conceal the sky as far as the eye can see, and there is the promise of more snow. The park is hushed, and we are the only ones out and about at such an early hour.

The silent trees along our woodland trail are baroque columns holding up the winter day, and perhaps the whole world. The interlaced branches over our heads are cathedral arches dusted with fresh snowfall, and the soaring light-filled spaces are beautiful to behold. Here then is our church of winter trees.

Every twig and branch in the woods is outlined in white, and the place is like a winter scene from one of the Narnia books.  Now and then, the wind dislodges snowflakes, and they fall to earth, glittering faintly in the murk and whispering softly as they come to rest on the roots and stones and hummocks along our way.

Taking the trail before us would be a fine thing, but the thought of marking the pristine snow with our footprints is troubling. There is no need to announce our presence, to publish a claim to these moments and their perfect trappings. We will simply stand here a while and watch as the light dances around us and the day unfolds. The trail can remain unmarked for a while longer.

 We will find another way through the woods.

Sequestered, Week 325 (CCCXXV)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

You really don't have to lose everything and travel to a remote valley to discover that the world is always rushing forward to teach us, and that the greatest thing we can do is stand there, open and available, and be taught by it. There is no limit to what this cracked and broken and achingly beautiful world can offer, and there is equally no limit to our ability to meet it.

Each day, the sun rises and we get out of bed. Another day has begun and bravely, almost recklessly, we stagger into it not knowing what it will bring to us. How will we meet this unpredictable, untamable human life? How will we answer its many questions and challenges and delights? What will we do when we find ourselves, stumble over ourselves, encounter ourselves, once again, in the kitchen?

Dana Velden, Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations

and Inspired Recipes from a Mindful Cook

Morning Through the Fence

Friday Ramble - First of the Year

In January, it is tempting to remain indoors and curl up in the warm with a mug of tea and a book, but Beau and I need to be out among the tree people now and again, however short our stay on cold days. Rambles nourish and sustain us, and there is always something to see when we are out and about.

Earlier this week, we were on the receiving end of an ice storm, and village streets have been treacherous going, but trails in the woods were not bad at all. "Crunch, crunch, crunch" went our booted (and cleated) feet yesterday as we made our way along. It was surely our imagination this early in the year, but the woods seemed brighter than they were a few days ago. Sunlight sparked through the trees, and everything glittered. The light was sublime. We felt as if every jeweler's vault on the planet had been looted and the glittering contents spilled out at our feet.

There was flickering movement in woodland alcoves and hollows; shadows rippled and flowed as squalls gusted through the whiskery trees. The shadows seemed deeper and more intense, more blue. Here and there, a tiny sprig of frozen evergreen poked out of the snow, and the color was a hopeful thing, one that not even the biting north wind could carry away in its gelid paws. I often wonder why there are not more words in the English language for such blustery air currents.

Resolutions this year? With so much suffering and uncertainty in the world, my heart is not in making resolutions. There is just the same old work in progress, Beau and I wandering along together, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out.

As we go, we will try to keep the words of Zen master and lay teacher Osaka Koryu in mind. When we breathe in, we will breathe in the whole universe. When we breathe out, we will breathe out the whole universe. We will ramble onward paw in paw as always, and we will simply keep putting one foot in front of the other. We will converse with the great trees along our way, and we will look for the light.

The first full moon of the calendar year will rise on Saturday evening (January 3), and skies are supposed to be clear that night so viewing conditions should be splendid. In the northern hemisphere, this month's full moon is often called the Wolf Moon because it was once believed that wolves howled more at this time of the year. Saturday's moon will be the first supermoon of 2026, and there will not be another until November. Wrap up warmly go outside for a look! 

Thursday Poem - Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and
suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts,
celebrates, leaves a space. I begin
again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and
leaves, only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Naomi Shihab Nye

(from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems)

Happy New Year! 

Haud Hogmanay, Happy New Year

There is nothing like a festive tankard to start a new year, a lovely hot flagon of mulled wine with bits of fruit (oranges, cranberries and Meyer lemons), cinnamon sticks, a few cloves, and an anise star or two. I love those things. Yum.

Wishing you abundance, cheer and rude good health in 2026, wishing you a few festive beakers (or noggins or drams) too. Be warm and safe this evening, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing. Mind yourself!

May you find joy in your creations. May all your lessons be gentle. May fulfillment grace your life. May there be fine adventures on the road ahead. May every cup you hold in your hands contain a star or two and have a little light dancing in its depths. May good things come to you. Wander often, wonder always. Blessed be.

Like Honey In Her Cup

The north wind brushes snow away from ice on the river, and clouds of displaced snowflakes swirl through the air like confetti. Light flickers through the frosted trees on the far shore, and everything sparkles: river, snowdrifts, whiskery branches and frozen grasses. The scene is uplifting for a crotchety human in late December. She longs for light, and the sunshine is a shawl across her shoulders as it comes and goes through the clouds and the mist over the river—it's like honey in her cup.

Reeds fringe the river here and there, their stalwart toes planted in the frozen mud, and their withered stalks swaying in the wind. The spikes outlined against the sky are pleasing when one can actually see them, their artfully curling tops eloquent of something wild and elemental and engaging. So too are the frosted fields, fences and trees on the far shore, the cobalt hues of snow and sky, the diaphanous veil of cold mist hanging over everything.

We call the wetland plants bulrushes or reed mace, cattails, cat-o'-nine-tails or swamp sausages. We tuck them into floral arrangements, weave them into baskets, pound their rhizomes into flour, make paper out of them, or sometimes (as she was doing this day) just perch on a shoreline and watch them crackle and flutter in the wind. Members of genus typha are always pleasing, but most of all when they are hanging out in the frozen waters of their native place.

Everything has frozen over, and there are no birds about, but she remembers how the river sang as it thawed last spring. She remembers the jubilant songs of the returning Canada geese in springtime, summer's majestic herons standing motionless in the reeds at sundown, loons calling melancholy goodbyes as they left for warmer lodgings last October. She thinks of Vladimir Nabokov's memoir, "Speak Memory", and she smiles. On another day, that might have been a good title for this morning's post, but she likes the title she has chosen, just as it is. So be it.

The world around her is a manuscript written in wind and light. How on earth is she going to fit sky, wind, landscape and dancing snow into one 5 x 7 image?

Sequestered, Week 324 (CCCXXIV)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break, and all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

L.R. Knost

Standing in the Light

The Between Days

Here we are again, poised at the heart of the liminal interlude bookended every year by the Winter Solstice and the shiny new year only a few days away. These winter days are a precious (and much needed) breathing spell between the two holidays, and I like to think of them as the "between days".

It seems as though 2025 just got here, but we are bidding it farewell and considering 2026 with its unknown possibilities, adventures, trials and ordeals. A little abundance and a few gentle adventures next year, fewer ordeals, please. No departed loved ones, serious health issues, falling trees and crumbling chimneys. Enough already.

Holiday shopping (what little there was of it) was wrapped up and tucked under the little tree in good time this year. A thousand and one cookies were made, and fruitcakes, coffee beans, tins of baking and bottles of wine were delivered around the village. Gift bags, ribbons and wrapping paper have already been folded and put away for another time, and the silken rustle of the tissue as it was smoothed and pleated into neat squares was pleasing to the ear.

Now there is stillness in the little blue house, and after days of toing and froing, there is time for rest and reflection. Who knows what Beau and I will be doing on New Year's eve? Seasonal viruses are running amok in the village, and there is a possibility we will be home by ourselves, safely sequestered with wonderfully smelly candles, a wedge of fine old cheddar, a good book, tea, gingerbread and clementines.

I made a lovely big pot of Bigelow's Constant Comment tea this morning, and the kitchen was filled with the fragrance of oranges and sweet spice. Snow sparkled through the south facing window, and the kitchen was filled with silvery dancing light. As we leaned against the counter and waited for the kettle to sing, it seemed to us (Beau and I) that the best part of the holidays is the clamor and bustle when the house is filled with loved ones, all of us together and happy to be here.

There was laughter and camaraderie in the kitchen and around the old oak table in the dining room. Oceans of hot stuff were poured and heaps of munchies were consumed. There was an eloquent silence in the darkened garden when everyone went home after our revels were ended. Looking up at the waxing moon, we thought of our departed companion, and we sent him our love. Blessed be.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! 

May there be light and comfort in your life.

May there be laughter and good companions. 

May all good things come to you.

Wordless Wednesday - Morning, Suspended

Sunlight in a Bowl

It all started with a trip to Costco a few days ago for such homely things as laundry detergent, dish soap, dishwasher pods, potty paper and facial tissues. There was no intention of coming home with food items. Indeed, both pantry and refrigerator were well stocked, and I had resolved not to bring any edibles home.

Then bags of Meyer lemons came into view, and that was the end of that. I simply had to have them. Meyers are sunlight in a bowl, and a whole dish of them on the kitchen counter lights me up. Their fragrance is sublime, and they pose for photos cheerfully, always a happy thing. I told myself they were an absolute necessity and tucked a bag into my shopping cart. What other shoppers thought of the dotty old hen muttering to a towering display of golden fruit, I have no idea. I didn't care.

Whenever I lurch out to the kitchen to make another pot of tea or throw some sorry culinary effort or other together, the Meyers make me smile. Zen teacher, writer and chef Dana Velden says that a bowl of lemons can offer us the world, and I agree with her. On a dismal morning in the depths of winter, a little sunlight is a fine old thing, especially when there is another winter storm in the offing.

Resting easy in their dish, floating in beakers of tea or gently squeezed into muffins, scones and salad drizzles, Meyers delight the eye and gladden the senses. Like clementines, another splendid seasonal offering, they conjure warm climes, gentle breezes and faraway places. One ought to indulge in such things every chance she gets, and I do. My frugal inner voice can get stuffed.

Advent Sun Wheel Wreath - Five Alight

Merry Yule

Let There Be Light

Friday Ramble - Thoughts Before Yule

After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns.There is movement, but it is not brought about by force; thus the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason, the transformation of the old becomes easy. The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic, and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning of heaven and earth.

I Ching Hexagram 24 - Fu / Return (The Turning Point)

Here we are again, nearing winter's 'still point of the turning year'. The ancient festival of Yule falls on Sunday, and its observance begins at sunset tomorrow evening. The occasion celebrates the return of the light, and it is one of four pivotal astronomical coordinates in the calendar year, along with the vernal equinox (Ostara), the summer solstice (Litha), and the autumn equinox (Mabon). The I Ching hexagram in the first paragraph of this post describes the observance beautifully. 

South of the equator, the four seasons are reversed, and Yule takes place on or around June 21st. If you live in the southern hemisphere, you are nearing midsummer and about to celebrate the summer solstice, Litha. Wherever you make your home in the great wide world, Happy Solstice to you!

Yule (also called Midwinter, or the Winter Solstice) is one of the two times in the year when the sun seems to stand still for a brief interval. The word "solstice" has been around in one shape or another for many centuries, and it comes to us from the Latin noun sōlstitium, itself a blend of the noun sōl [sun] and the related verb sistere [to stand still]. So, the word solstice simply means "sun standing still". At the beginning of our wordy trek are the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots  *seH₂wol-, and *sH₂un-, both meaning simply "sun". Of course, it is we earthlings and our dear little planet who are in motion, not the magnificent star that lights our way.

December days are cloudy for the most part. Sunny days are rare, and they seem to be the coldest days of all. The earth in the woods is frozen rock hard, and this year there is snow under the old trees. There is a sense of movement in the landscape, a feeling that change is on its way. The word chthonic always comes to mind at this time of the year. Somewhere in the earth below our wandering feet, small entities sleep and wait to rise when the northern world is warm again.

Sunlight is a scarce quantity here in winter, and we look forward to having a few more minutes of sunlight every day after this weekend - until next June when sunlight hours will begin to wane again. The first few months of next year will be frigid going, but hallelujah, there will be sunlight and blue sky now and again.

As I kindle a fire at nightfall, I think of the ancestors. Huddled together for warmth in their caves and bothies, they would have fed the flames burning on their open hearths and lighted tallow lamps to drive the dark away. They would have watched winter skies hopefully for signs of the sun's return, and they would have rejoiced when earth's northern hemisphere began to tilt back toward the sun.

Lighting a candle or building a fire on one's hearth is a powerful gesture. In putting flame to wick or kindling, we claim our kinship with those who have gone before us. We join our hallowed foremothers in a joyful circle that goes back to the beginning times. We are not alone. The spirits of our ancestors dance in our bones.

Beau and I will have a quiet Yule lunch with a dear friend on December 21st. We will walk in the woods and leave small gifts for wild kin, make sure that the birds visiting the feeders in our garden have suet and seed and bits of festive fruit. There will be candlelight and mugs of tea, clementines, cider and gingerbread cookies.

We will look out as night falls and give thanks for the fruitful darkness, for the return of light to the world. My departed love will be here in spirit - he always enjoyed celebrating the solstices and equinoxes, our Yule festivities most of all.

Happy Yule (or Litha) to you and your tribe. May light grace your life.

Thursday Poem - At the Winter Solstice

Owl hoots three times in the far woods,
fair warning for all small creatures
scurrying to their burrows.

Are we not still and always
those crouching figures
who flee the heavenly alchemy?
Three times in the crackling air,
Owl hoots for us.

*

Wind plays the drums of snow...
staccato taps,
crescendo off the roofs,
flourish of shuddering branches.
Ice snaps its castanets,
its daggers.

Atonal music of the darkest days
needs the most fearless,
subtle listeners.

*

Those strumming flamenco
fingers of sunlight
are a long time away from now.

Now we go comforted
in dreams and ceremonies,
flaming our star-speck candles,
raising our voices against that other music,
drowning out the forever
at night’s heart.

*

Look up! The wheel is turning.
The spectacular crowd of stars,
the tangle of dimensions
jostle for our attention.
Salute the birth of everything holy.

Dolores Stewart (Riccio)

At Yule, we celebrate the triumphant return of old Helios, the ascendance of light in the fertile darkness of winter. This morning's poem was written by the late Dolores Stewart (Riccio) and published in her exquisite Doors to the Universe. It is posted here with her kind permission. She was my friend.

Wordless Wednesday - Catching the Sun

A Tree Full of Reindeer

One doesn't have to cut browse for the reindeer galloping around in the old crabapple tree or take windfall apples and other fodder to their winter lodgings. My late husband and I did that for many years, dragging toboggans of cut cedar and other stuff to deer yards in the deep woods during harsh winters. That is fine - most of my time in the last few weeks has been spent moving snow around, and there would have been little or no time for feeding deer. These days, Beau and I would be doing it alone. 

The caribou of the Canadian north are reindeer, and their name in this country was coined by early 17th century French explorers who borrowed it from an indigenous Mi'kmaq word meaning "one who paws". Both genders grow antlers, and that makes them unique among deer species. Males drop their racks after the autumn mating season, but females retain theirs all winter and use them to excavate food sources in deep snow, important because most mature does are pregnant during the long white season. The antlered reindeer in my tree are all female. What ho!

Our red holiday ornaments are cheerful, and I like to leave them in place until spring.  That means that at some point this winter I will be burrowing through three or four feet of snow in the front yard to unearth (or rather unsnow) those that have been loosened by the wind and fallen out of the tree. The exercise is good fun.  

If the girls were real and not ornaments swaying back and forth in the old crabapple, they would be hoofing about in the garden, digging holes in the snow for nosh and munching on the cedar hedge until it was a thicket of forlorn twigs. 

Advent Sun Wheel Wreath (Week 4)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the upper Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

Gary Snyder, from A Controversy of Poets

A gathering of poets is a controversy? It would also be a good word for a bunch of salty, independent, elderly women. Where do I sign up?

Waiting for Breakfast

Friday Ramble - Winter Mornings Are Made of This

I lurch awake before sunrise and make coffee, then lean against the counter and wait for the day to begin. As always, there is the ardent hope that there will be sunlight, that the sun's rays will reach the kitchen window, passing between the slats of the wooden fence on the east side of the garden in their journey. Sometimes there is sunlight on these winter mornings, but much of the time, there is not.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a decent pair of sun specs for myself as a birthday gift, so given the puckish (and often downright contrary) attitude of the weather deities about such doings, we may not see sunlight here until April.

On we go, or rather trudge. I inhale a lovely hot mug of caffeinated black stuff, bundle up in every warm garment I own and lurch outside to move snow from thresholds, verandas and walkways. With a little luck, the north wind will not turn up and put everything back where it was when I started. There has been a lot of wind here in recent days though, and it probably will.

In a week or so, our days will begin to stretch out languorously, but it will be a month or two before real change can be seen and felt in the sun's trajectory through old wooden fences, icy window panes and snow crowned shrubbery. The light is oro pallido this morning, pale buttery gold with a hint of mother-of-pearl.

Some mornings, skies are breathtaking at dawn, their deep blue shading gloriously to pink and gold and purple near the horizon, but the weather is wickedly cold for the most part. Thermometer readings of -30 degrees (Celsius) are not unusual around here in December. Whatever the thermometer says, there is a fine elusive old truth resting out there in the interstices between earth and sky at dawn, in the dance of light and shadow in the snowbound landscape.

On woodland rambles, I trace sharp lines of shadow in the white stuff with my eyes, measure the changes in their inclination from day to day. Warmer, brighter times are already on their way, but we have a very long way to go before they get here, and sometimes spring seems years away rather than months. Until it gets here, I have resolved to look for dancing motes of light in the world around me every time I go out. Perhaps I will encounter a few within myself too.

As we potter along, we (Beau and I) try to remember that deep within their dreaming roots, the trees in our beloved woodland cradle the light.

Thursday Poem - Chains of Fire

Each dawn, kneeling before my hearth,
Placing stick, crossing stick
On dry eucalyptus bark
Now the larger boughs, the log
(With thanks to the tree for its life)
Touching the match, waiting for creeping flame.
I know myself linked by chains of fire
To every woman who has kept a hearth.

In the resinous smoke
I smell hut and castle and cave,
Mansion and hovel.
See in the shifting flame my mother
And grandmothers out over the world
Time through, back to the Paleolithic
In rock shelters where flint struck first sparks
(Sparks aeons later alive on my hearth)
I see mothers , grandmothers back to beginnings,
Huddled beside holes in the earth
of igloo, tipi, cabin,
Guarding the magic no other being has learned,
Awed, reverent, before the sacred fire
Sharing live coals with the tribe.

For no one owns or can own fire,
it lends itself.
Every hearth-keeper has known this.
Hearth-less, lighting one candle in the dark
We know it today.
Fire lends itself,
Serving our life
Serving fire.

At Winter solstice, kindling new fire
With sparks of the old
From black coals of the old,

Seeing them glow again,

Shuddering with the mystery,

We know the terror of rebirth.

Elsa Gidlow

Wordless Wednesday - Evergreen

Rattle and Hum

It is still dark outside, and through the window comes the clatter of the wind skating across the roof with its freight of frozen twigs, the sound of small icicles crashing in shards on the deck, trees in the garden shaking their snow garments loose in a long slow dance. Light snow is falling, but the descending white stuff makes no sound, at least from in here. In the kitchen, there is the burble and hiss of the De'Longhi coffee machine, the rattle and hum of the old refrigerator in the corner.

By rights, there should be the sound of the toaster too, but it will be a while until I can even think about toast or waffles This is "bang up" weather for migraines, and I have awakened with one. I thought about doing prescription meds when I opened my eyes but have opted for a beaker of industrial strength espresso instead. Just holding it and breathing in its scent is comforting.

The stuff in my cup is as black as night and has the consistency of solid propellant rocket fuel. It could be dispatched with a fork. Steam rises in arty curls from the inky lagoon, and a splendid creamy froth floats on the surface. The fragrance of the freshly ground Logdriver Espresso from Bridgehead is ambrosial and so are the glossy beans in their canister. Headache or no, I consider drawing pictures in the foam.

Why is it my thoughts always turn to Paris when the weather is like this? With beaker in hand, I look through my collection of Cavallini rubber stamps, vintage postcards, stickers and notebooks - the little ones with maps of France, fleurs-de-lis, French postage stamps, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre museum, Notre-Dame Cathedral or the Eiffel Tower gracing their covers.

When the migraine has expired in my espresso sea, I will curl up in a corner and read something in French, perhaps the latest Fred Vargas. Yup, I can do this.