Ice at the Edge of the Year

We will spend this liminal time at the cusp of the calendar year as we always do - wrapped up warmly (and weighted down) in our heaviest winter clothing, wandering around among the trees and rocks of the Two Hundred Acre Wood and the Lanark Highlands and drinking in the wildness of the place.

Old friends of obdurate temperament and hardy constitution will join us, and we will all potter around together for a few hours. Tea and fruitcake (my grandmother's recipe) will be served out in the open. We will watch the steam wafting heavenward from our rapidly cooling mugs and the clouds moving across the sky - we will listen to the wind in the trees and exchange good wishes, then return to our homes late in the day to thaw out and light a fragrant fire on the hearth.

Not very exciting is it? I crave this quiet time at the edge of the calendar year: good time for a little chat with myself about defining priorities and setting goals for 2007, for reaffirming my commitment to Mother Earth and Her children, the path I have chosen to tread in this lifetime and my desire to walk lightly on this hallowed earth. I like to think of us as seekers going forth in a vast singing throng, and the words of the Buddha are good ones for this day and the coming year, wonderful words for now, for always and forever.

"The seeker who sets out on the way shines bright over the world"

Happy New Year to each and every one of you. Emaho!!!

Paint the Day White

This morning we are into winter mode and (as usual), we are not doing things by halves here in the north. Last evening's forecast of "a few centimetres of frozen precipitation" was exceeded within the first five minutes, and a dense fluffy blue snowfall continues. The storm will abide with us all day, and it appears that we will not be off to the Two Hundred Acre Wood at all - it would probably be difficult to locate the necessary traffic arteries, let alone travel them in safety.

The first acts of this day after pulling the draperies open and starting a heady brew of French roast were to sweep off the entrance and walkway, then dust the snow off the bird feeders and fill them to brimming. The feathered friends will be hungry today, and their "nosh" will be buried somewhere underneath all this lovely whiteness.

My bones creak, and my joints protest this weather vigorously. My eyes (on the other hand) adore newly fallen snow and winter days, and they frame image after stark and poignant image, even when I am not holding my camera in a gloved and shaky hand. The world is taking on the perfect colours and contours of a winter study by Hiroshige, Hasui or Kuniyoshi, and painting after painting is kicking up its heels behind my eyelids this morning.

When I caught a snowflake on my tongue a while ago, it sparkled like windbells and tasted blue.

Mama Says Om - Family

There was a wealth of images here which I could have chosen for this week's theme at Mama Says Om, and for the the last few days, my mind has been dancing off in all sorts of directions, rather like the woman warrior who mounted her horse with great aplomb and rode off in all directions at once. Last evening though, something beckoned me toward the tarot deck which resides in a carved wooden box in my study, and I heeded the compelling tug.

The Greenwood Tarot has been out of print and circulation for years, and solitary copies have been going for astonishing prices on EBAY, so I consider myself fortunate in possessing a copy of the deck, one gifted to me shortly after publication by a dear friend who knew that I had always admired Chesca Potter's work - Chesca set her remarkable creation free some time ago, and I am trusting that copyright is not an issue as I post this.

I also admire the Druidcraft Tarot, by Stephanie and Philip Carr-Gomm and Will Worthington, and one of these days, I shall have and cherish deeply a copy of Joanna Powell Colbert's incandescent Gaian Tarot. All three decks are rooted in Mother Earth and Her magnificent creation, so there are probably no surprises here.

Last evening, I decided to ask the cards what they thought about family and pull nine cards at random. The deck yielded the six images above (from top left to bottom right): Home, Hearth, Tradition, Harvest, Celebration and Joy, and the concluding cards were: Generosity, Fulfillment and the World Tree - a card which has always been synonymous (for me anyway) with "oneness", connection, community, and the great cosmic family of which we are but a minute and trifling part. I'm not sure what led me to do all this, but the reading was right on, and I was delighted.

Written for Mama Says Om.

Poetry Thursday - A Mind of Winter

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man

There is an original Thursday haiku offering here.

The Guardian Pine

If the Two Hundred Acre Wood in Lanark has a guardian, then this tree is that guardian, and she is a dear and beloved old friend, someone I always look for when we round the curve and approach the gate of the place.

The great pine is visible for miles, and she stands relaxed and easy in her place by a century old cedar rail fence on a slope along the western perimeter of the property, immensely tall, several feet in diameter, and sculpted into a flowing Zen shape by the strong winds which blow across the hill at any time of year and have been shaping the tree since she was a mere sapling. I took this photo from a very long way back indeed.

In recent weeks when ice, blowing snow and rain have been cutting a swath through the highlands and bringing trees down everywhere out there, I have been asking myself on every trip, "How is Tree doing, is she still standing and is she all right?". Then we round the curve, I see her in her place by the fence, and I sigh in profound relief. She is still there waiting for me, and she always seems to be waving in greeting, her mighty curving branches beckoning to me in a way which is both companionable and welcoming.

My friend is a Zen master who knows how to live harmoniously with the elements - she bends and flows in wind and storm alike, and she does not break apart or come tumbling down in the field where she lives - she just goes with the flow. With no apparent effort on her part, she is serene, mindful, rejuvenating and such a great joy to spend time with - in my dark times, she is the companion I long for and go to at the earliest opportunity, and she is always a comfort and a voice of wisdom. I should like to be more like her, and I am working on it. . . .

Tree is the perfect metaphor for my life and my regular but rather rickety Buddhist meditation practice, and she was the perfect image for the family Yuletide card this year. She should have appeared here long before now.

Boxing Day

Christmas Day

Best wishes to all of you in this festive season!

Lighted Windows

Lighted windows and tall Victorian houses togged
out in tinsel do not a Yuletide make, and in this
moment, I would trade them blithely for a hillside
dressed only in snow and glossy ice, for the good
clean scent of cedar and pine, the whiskery shapes of
trees standing proud and alone along the ridge.

This Yuletide self longs for rocks and hills and coves,
a cold and solitary wind whistling hollow along the
heights and depths and embracing me as kindred,
naming me friend and fellow wanderer, welcoming
me as a wild sister, one long lost, now found again.

Light the fire upon the hearth, hand round the cider,
tea and cake, and dream of perfect snowy days deep
in the woodlands, away from streets and idling motors,
make of yourself a conduit for all things good and true,
a spirit at once wild and tame, a small flame of grace
and hope dancing among the crumbs and empty cups.

(. . . . written this morning as I stirred another batch of Florentines, made cider punch and tea and put together platters of snacks, fruitcake and biscuits for unexpected guests. I love this season, its colours, shapes, smells and textures, the Yuletide trees, candles and surprise guests ringing the doorbell, but there are times during the holidays when the deep woods beckon in their eloquent stillness, and it takes some effort on my part to resist their sovereign tug.

Here, There and Everywhere, Now and Then

As I leave the little blue house to finish the frenetic mixing, wrapping, pasting, ornamenting and scurrying which are required to complete our festive (but small and frugal) arrangements this year, an image of a perfect December day in another year, a day just before Yule (or Christmas) when we had a truly glorious snowfall and all the world seemed white, plumed, crystaline and fresh.

This is the way the world should look at Christmas time methinks. Whenever one looks at images like this one, she breathes in the dearest freshness deep down things (Gerard Manley Hopkins' words) of newfallen snow and the heady green perfume of fragrant cedar, pine and spruce boughs all over again.

Tthe village and the Lanark Highlands are not wearing white for Yule this year, and they don't look like this at all. There is little or no snow here, and our skates, skis, sleds, sleighs and toboggans are a forlorn lot as they lean against house walls everywhere and entreat the universe to send a little snow their (and our) way.

Mama Says Om - Tradition

Votive candles, tealights, salt lamps, candelabra, luminaria and tall tapers on the old oak table in the dining room - it is astonishing how many of our traditions here seem to involve candles, and that may be due in some measure to the fact that we are northern dwellers - thoughts about light and warmth are never far from minds living this far north, and I suspect that the further north one lives, the more likely this is to be the case.

There are a lot of candles burned in the little blue house in the village during any given calendar year, and the candles we burn vary in size from tiny golden tealights which fit nicely into a Himalayan salt lamp to Pheylonian pillars almost a foot in diameter and standing several inches high.

It all comes down to light, community and sharing. Some of our best loved clan traditions relate to Yuletide, and I cherish one with particular fondness - a family tradition established years ago in which we assemble on the Winter Solstice to celebrate the return of the sun. Lights in the little blue house are turned off, and we sit together in the darkness for a few moments before lighting a big Solstice pillar candle in a crystal hurricane candle holder. Then each of us of us in turn lights a smaller candle in a home made luminaria from the big one and recites a favorite poem, story or prayer. When the lights go on again, there is food, music and song, more tales for the little ones and the exchanging of small gifts - last night's most popular tale by far was the mythical Japanese tale of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. I so wish I could bottle up the happiness of last evening's festivities and partake of it all year.

Winter Solstice Candle 2006

Poetry Thursday - For the Winter Solstice

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost's beautiful "stopping" poem might seem to be an odd choice in poetry for this hallowed day - I learned this poem as a youngster and never thought of it as a Winter Solstice poem at all, only realizing a few years ago (silly me) that the poet had written it on the eve of Yule many years ago as he paused with his horse and sleigh by the side of a country road near his New Hampshire farm. On some level, I must have known this, because I have always loved the poem.

This morning's Yuletide link is to views of this morning's solstice sunrise at beautiful ancient Newgrange in the fabled Boyne valley of Ireland. On the morning of the Winter Solstice, a beam of sunlight from the rising sun dances its way through the roof box over the entrance of the megalithic edifice and travels down the long passage into the heart of the inner chamber, illuminating a ritual stone basin below the intricately carved end wall for a few magical moments and filling the heart of the complex with radiance. Have a look too at the spectacular solstice sunset views to be seen at Maeshowe, the astonishing neolithic chambered complex on Stenness in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. We have been welcoming the returning light on this day of the year for a very long time, for centuries beyond our ken.

The blessings of Yule, the Winter Solstice and the turning light to you, to your hearth and your kindred.

Turning Point or Cosmic Hinge

The time of darkness is past. . . . The winter solstice brings the victory of light. . . . 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. . . . 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 cyclical, 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. . . .

The winter solstice has always been celebrated in China as the resting time of the year. . . . In winter, the life energy is still underground. Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it must be strengthened by rest, so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely. . . . The return of health and vibrancy after illness, the return of understanding after estrangement: everything must be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that the return may lead to a flowering.

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

For a wealth of Yuletide lore and traditions and much happy reading, visit my friend Waverly Fitzgerald at the School of the Seasons, and be sure to browse through Theresa Ruano's magnificent Candlegrove. Visit Dr. Kathleen Jenks at Mything Links too.

For the Ashes

"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."
Rainer Maria Rilke

This morning I am in mourning, but at the same time I am also cultivating a green and enduring hope. This post is a brief and very loving paean (or song of thanksgiving) for two of my favorite trees in the garden. It is also an invocation to the Old Wild Mother and a heartfelt prayer for their survival.

When we purchased the little blue house in the village years ago, we liked the house and thought it would be a good home for us. At the time, it didn't have as many bookshelves as we would have liked or the space for a separate studio and sewing room, but oh the trees. . . . We were besotted and entranced by the trees in the garden, and we purchased the house, really just for the trees.

There was one old ash tree in the garden (or rather a pair of old ash trees) with whom I fell in love on the spot. The two trees wrap around each other in a long slow spiral, enfolding each other and growing in a deep embrace. They lean into each other like companionable twins, long time lovers or old friends who have been together for centuries, and their pleasure in being rooted together in the same place is obvious.

For years, those two ash trees have been my companions, and greeting them is always my first act of the day. In the morning I have coffee with them — over the years I have watched multitudes of birds singing, dancing and nesting among their perfectly arching branches — I have seen innumerable summer suns tracking across the sky behind them — I have photographed countless moons rising over them — there has never been a day when I didn’t touch and greet the ash trees and bless them for gracing me with their benign and loving presence.

The ashes have appeared here many times during the last year or two, but (alas) their time in the garden may be coming to a close. During a storm a few days ago, a high wind brought a huge branch from one tree crashing down into the garden, and while the local arborist is doing his best to save both ashes, things here are a tad "iffy" at the moment, and it is likely that they will both have to be removed. They have been growing together for so long that they cannot be separated (rather like Himself and me, I suppose).

I am distraught. Of course, I took photographs of the ash's recent tumble, but looking at those images makes me feel a little sick, and I just can't bring myself to post one of them here this morning.

This is for the ashes.

The Yule Wreath

A frenetic time this with cards to make, send and drop off in various places, small gifts to purchase, wrap and deliver, holiday baking to finish off and put away, meetings for tea and conversation with old friends. . . .

This is the Yuletide/Christmas card we are sending out this year, just a photo of the old barn out in the Lanark Highlands with my home crafted wreath suspended from the cross beam.

The barn dates from 1862, a rough dressed granite foundation, massive supporting beams of oak and cedar with a diameter of several feet, and a rough plank exterior sheltering its residents from sun, wind, precipitation and icy temperatures. The structure has been standing quietly in its native place and performing its appointed tasks for well over a century now, with nary a complaint and only a a mild protesting creak now and then in high wind and snowfall - in the depths of winter, it sings clearly in a fine true mezzo soprano voice.

Have I ever mentioned here how much I love these old farm buildings? The ornate stained glass windows in churches are delightful, but the walls of my old barn are a wonder, and whenever I enter it, I marvel at the stalwart construction of the place, at its spirit, its air of resolution and its commitment to shelter and community, at the beauty of its old beams and hand hewn boards with their flowing woodgrain and silvery patina. Here is my church, my nave and my transept, my temple and sanctuary, my temenos. Here is my very own rose window, and no stained glass creation will ever match it.

Over the next week or two, I will be sharing a few favourite holiday links here, and I can think of no better place to begin than with Joanna Powell Colbert's incandescent Winter Solstice page.

Oh yes, and there is an original Monday haiku sequence here.

Before Yule at the Pond

This morning, I am sharing a tradition, my annual pre-Yule visit to the hidden beaver pond which lies almost a mile from the front gate of the Two Hundred Acre Wood, an hour or so spent in the comfortable presence of my favourite place. At other times of the year, my companions are the beaver tribe (which is snug in its twiggy lodge now), the quietly roaming deer, great herons, sandpipers and wood ducks — yesterday, there was only me and a raven croaking happily overhead.

Whatever the holiday interval brings my way, I feel compelled to do this, and when I have made my visit to the pond and given thanks to the land and its wild residents, I can handle just about anything the universe throws my way.

This is the place where my spirit is most at home — a visit to the old beaver pond soothes my spirit and banishes anxiety, it energizes me, and it lifts me up.

Little Fractal Rivers

The little woodland rivers in Lanark bear within themselves, other smaller channels, eddies and coves: tides ascending and retreating, quiet pools and waves, marshes, estuaries and deeper unseen running currents.

In springtime, little woodland rivers are tempestuous entities, and they are raucous in their descent, pouring themselves down the hillsides with mad abandon and delicious scorn. In summer, they flow undergound and move beyond our view, murmuring softly in company with the trees above them. In autumn, they are Sargasso seas of waving fallen leaves, and they whisper of change and cold to come.

In winter, the little rivers are artists whose chosen medium is ice, all spirals and swirls and glorious icy fractals.

Poetry Thursday - Enriching the Earth

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.

Wendell Berry, Enriching the Earth

There is a original offering for Poetry Thursday here.

Christmas Carol Meme

My friend Shelley at But Wait, There’s More has tagged me on her Christmas Carol meme, and here are my own choices for the Yuletide festival interval, spanning three languages and several centuries.

Particular Favourites

In the Bleak Midwinter, Christina Rossetti/Gustav Holst (1905)
Quelle est cette odeur agréable?, Traditional (Baroque)
Il est né le divin enfant, Traditional (Renaissance)
Silent Night (Stille Nacht) Joseph Mohr/Franz Gruber (1818)
Once in Royal David's City, Cecil Alexander/Henry Gauntlet (1849)

Other Favourites

They are not really Christmas carols (or holiday songs), but I am very fond of the following two modern (and exquisite) compositions by British choral composer, John Rutter, and I always play them during Yuletide. How can we honour light, the sacred and the turning year without blessing the Earth and all our fellow travellers on this journey?

All Things Bright and Beautiful, Cecil Alexander/John Rutter
For the Beauty of the Earth, Folliot Pierpoint/John Rutter

Absolutely Not................

Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Wesley/Mendelssohn (1840)
White Christmas, Irving Berlin (1940)
Silver Bells, Livingston/Evans (1950)
The Little Drummer Boy, Davis/Onorati/Simeone (1958)

For an absolutely magnificent (there is simply no other word for it) version of the carol I love best, "In the Bleak Midwinter", visit Joanna Powell Colbert's lovely (beyond lovely - it is sublime) Gaian Tarot Artist's Journal. Her husband Craig Olson's beautiful rendering of the carol reduced me to tears. It was so lovely that I sat here and cried.

In my own turn, I am tagging Endment, Rowan, Maya's Granny and Potato Prints.

Wild Words for a Winter Day

At first a small line of inconceivable splendour emerged on the horizon, above which, quickly expanding, the sun appeared in all of his glory, unveiling the whole face of nature, vivifying every colour of the landscape, and sprinkling the dewy earth with glittering light.
Ann Radcliffe

I go to Nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more.
John Burroughs

Take care of the land, and it will take care of you. Take what you need from the land, but need what you take.
Aboriginal Law

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
Rachel Carson

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you… while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir

The woods were made for the hunter of dreams, the brooks for the fishers of song. To the hunters who hunt for gunless game, the stream and the woods belong.
Sam Walter Foss

Clear Blue and Waning

After the cold and the wind of Friday and Saturday, it was something of a surprise to arrive on the hill in Lanark yesterday and discover blue skies and rapidly disappearing snows. We had been prepared for colder weather and grey skies and were suitably togged out for the occasion, resembling nothing so much as a pair of huge, padded, colourful and very determined yeti.

The deer had already consumed most of the grain and apples at their feeding stations, and the bird feeders were emptied - we were met right at the car door by a flock of chickadees chirping their pleasure in seeing us and their joyous anticipation of full feeders along the trail. Beneath a thin blanket of patterned ice, all the streams were running freely again. Downed trees, frostbitten ferns and clumps of brome were emerging from the fading lacy snows, and it felt like springtime.

What does one actually say about such quiet days? The sky poured brilliant blue over the landscape and disappearing snowdrifts, and the snows offered their own crystalline blues and sparkling shadows to the sky in an act of carefree and unfettered reciprocity. The weather was perfect for rambling in the woods, the day was peaceful and without incident, and our several hours wandering among the trees were deeply and exquisitely satisfying. I was happy wandering, listening to the birds, watching shadows and light move across the landscape and small things emerging from the snow.

As I closed the gate late in the afternoon, a magnificent mature Bald Eagle flew right over my head, and seeing that glorious bird was better than finding gold in the snow. I do wish that it had paused long enough to be photographed.

The usual Monday haiku sequence (except for those weeks when the muse does not visit) is here.

Icy

Hm, we said to each other... "Only a few degrees below freezing today, it's a perfect day for a long ramble in the woods, cameras in hand and a toboggan full of grain, apples and seed for the birds. There is no sunshine, but we can cope with that."

Verily, it was only a few degrees below freezing yesterday if one factored out the wind, but what a wind it was and the real temperature was "way down there" somewhere. The wind went shrieking over the hills and through the hollows, sweeping slopes clear and piling the snow in odd places, flash freezing everything it touched as it passed through. That winter wind went through parkas, ski pants, thermal underwear, boots, headgear and mittens as though they were made of paper.

It was far too cold yesterday to doff the mittens and take more than one or two photos, but we filled up the various bird feeders and left grain and apples for the deer in the usual places. I paused by the stream for a moment and feasted my eyes on the icy fractals being formed by the wind and abysmal temperature, but I was happy to leave the icy deeps and return home to make tea. We shall try again today.

The ice fractals (of course) were wonderful, elaborate spirals and outward expanding swirls of glossy frozen water, crunchy leaves and ice crystals, wonderful textures everywhere.

Blue Wooded Sanctuary

Yesterday's blog entry was about the smoothness of snow and offered a view of a quiet cove in the Lanark woods with snow, trees and wandering stream, a place which is much loved. This morning, I am tucking in two other views of that same magical corner - I visit the place every time I go out to the highlands, and it always energizes and soothes, caressing the spirit gently and enchanting the senses. I come away from such intervals feeling renewed and refreshed and ready to tackle whatever comes my way.

As cold as it is on the Two Hundred Acre Wood at this time of year, my special corner is out of the wind, an oasis of calm and quiet. The hemlocks, pines and spruces are richly fragrant and perfect in their dusting of snow - any other form of ornamentation would be excessive.

Yesterday, it was so quiet that I could hear the snow tumbling off the trees.

Mama Says Om - Smooth

What could be smoother than snow? It blankets the landscape in the northern highlands, draping itself over hillsides and filling in woodland hollows here and there. It heaps itself like meringue on glacial dropstones, rounds off the contours of old rail fences, conceals hedgerows entirely and cloaks the fragrant spruces, cedars and old oaks in a mantle of whiteness that is deep and clean and smooth. Snow is without prejudice - it wraps itself lovingly around everything it encounters in its headlong descent, and enfolded in its pristine billows and swirls, we are all equal.

There is rest, stillness and peace in winter, only the occasional muffled sounds of the wind and deer moving quietly through the trees, the murmur of streams still unfrozen. Vast multitudes of snowflakes fall, but no two are the same.

Written for the wise women at Mama Says Om.

Poetry Thursday - Silent Friend

Silent friend of many distances, feel

how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.

Rilke, The Sonnets to Orpheus, II, 29

(Translated by Steven Mitchell)

This week, Poetry Thursday asks us to revisit our earliest encounters with poetry, our luminous reading experiences and our thoughts about poetry in a meme. My responses are here.

Blue Now

Blue, blue and more blue. . . . The north seems blue in December when the snows have arrived - the skies over my head on clear days (there are one or two), the wide fields in the Lanark Highlands, the granite outcroppings and hollows, the deep shadows along the hedgerow at the bottom of the garden and stretched out across the countryside at dusk. Where does all this blue come from, when the world has been grey and brown for several weeks?

I often think that the Old Wild Mother (Earth) must be using every scrap of energy she possesses to compensate for the greyness of our short northern days. Every single shade of blue in the colour palette was on display yesterday from the palest pastel to sparkling indigos of such depth and intensity that they were almost black. Great trees, small shrubs, weeds and old rail fences were covered with fine powdery snow, and in heart of every single snowflake was a deep rich blue crying out for notice.

I always enjoy poking about in snow crowned hedgerows, but of the myriad transformations wrought by winter in the countryside, the image in the second photo is a particular favourite. The old roll of barbed wire rests in my neighbour's field, and it has been there for years, abandoned, twisted, rusted, forlorn and in the general scheme of things scorned and ignored - the wire was designed to be of use, and I always think it looks rather sad on its slope.

Yesterday, winter and her paint box of vibrant blues turned the old roll of wire into an al fresco work of art of astonishing complexity, and almost everyone who drove by stopped to look at the creation.

Blue Later

blue winter morning
sounds of traffic beyond my windows
beta blogger faltering

Beta Blogger is experiencing more hiccups this morning, or should that be potholes? It's a sad state of affairs - for once I sat down here this morning with the the beginnings of a brief ramble bubbling up gently in my thoughts and dancing fingers. That unusual event was powered (no doubt) by my first fragrant mug of strong black French roast coffee

(Sigh) We shall try again later, and in the meantime, perhaps I can sustain this personal momentum with infusions of tea.

Ice Compositions

Somewhere around this time every year, I begin to ponder the matter of colour in photographs, and the inner critic suggests that I eschew colour and wander the winter landscape working solely in black and white photographs. At such times, eyes and mind persist in thinking in terms of abstract monochromatic compositions, ice glossed fractals, snowy textures and whiskery collages created entirely out of frosted branches.

My few hundred acres in Lanark are just perfect for such an exercise in December, great rocks and small stones rimed in crystal, old rail fences outlined in powdery white and bare trees in the stark and windy coves decked out in robes of clear ice. The fallen leaves on the forest floor were once faded and translucent, but now they seem to be acquiring both weight and substance, and they are becoming vivid entities again. They lift their crackling bronze and russet faces as I crunch by them along the trail — they glitter with mad abandon — they sway in their windswept places. "Look, look, oh do look," they call out as I potter on by with camera in hand. "Am we not a banquet for winter eyes and spirits? Feast your eyes on us and be glad."

Leaves and trees certainly are a feast for the eyes and spirit in winter, and perhaps I shall work only in black and white one of these days, but how I can pass up the magnificent colour of these northern days and places, the vignettes offered at every turning?

It occurred to me after writing this blog entry that these photos and words would have been perfect for the theme at One Deep Breath this week (close, closer, closest), but a recent visit from a wise old Barred Owl (Strix varia) was foremost in my thoughts when I wrote yesterday.

December's Full Moon of Long Nights

It is the last full moon of the conventional calendar year, this bright moon which usually falls before Yule (or the winter solstice). The full moon of December rises icy cold and clear into starry winter skies, and it may well be the most beautiful moon of them all - it is certainly the most brilliant.

December's moon always seems poignant to me and rather lonely, floating up there in the velvety darkness by herself. When this full moon rolls around, those of us who live in the north are huddled indoors near our hearths, heaving wood into the fireplace or stove at regular intervals and watching the dancing flames, drinking tea, trying to stay warm and out of the wind and the cold. We watch the ebb and flow of the seasons and the passing of the short days and long nights from our frosty windows, and we hold fast to thoughts of warmth and light returning, knowing well that it will be the end of January before we begin to see any real change in the length of our days and the warmth of the sun.

Moon watching in December is not for everyone, and it takes a hardy soul indeed to stand shivering in the garden under the dark spidery trees with camera and tripod looking up, but however cold the night and the wind, the exercise is always well worth it, for December's moon really is something special.

Like its older sisters, this moon has many names, and we also know it as:

Ashes Fire Moon, Beginning of Winter Moon, Big Bear Moon, Birch Moon, Center Moon's Younger Brother, Cold Moon, Bitter Moon, Deer Shed Their Horns Moon, Dumannos Moon, Eccentric Moon, Elder Moon, Frozen Over Moon, Holy Moon, Hellebore Moon, Her Winter Houses Moon, Hunting Moon, Ice Moon, Little Finger Moon, Little Spirits Moon, Long Nights Moon, Long Snows Moon, Middle of Winter Moon, Moon Before Yule, Moon of Cold, Moon of Long Nights, Moon of Much Cold, Moon of Popping Trees, Moon of Putting Your Paddle Away in the Bush, Moon of Respect, Moon When Deer Shed Their Horns, Moon When Little Bears Are Born, Moon When the Young Fellow Spreads the Brush, Moon When the Wolves Run Together, Moon When the Sun Has Traveled South to His Home to Rest Before He Starts Back on His Journey North, Night Moon, Oak Moon, Poinsettia Moon, Real Goose Moon, Snow Moon, Star Frost Moon, Turning Moon, Twelfth Moon, Under Burn Moon, White Orchid Tree Moon, Winter Moon, World Darkness Moon, Yule Moon

A Monday haiku offering may be found here.

Sparkling

This weekend, we moved effortlessly from the world of new snowfall into a place of rain and slush, and thence into the realm of ice. Temperatures plummeted during the night, and when we awakened this morning, the whole world was crisp and sunlit and sparkling.

Autumn's fallen leaves are deep underfoot, and they crackle in their ice shawls gloriously. Today, the trees overhead are wearing ice, diamonds and fiery opals - they are all decked out in holiday ornaments, and they are something truly wondrous to behold. As the wind shakes the ice coated branches of the old ash trees, there is the splendid tinkling music of icicles being dislodged from their perches and tumbling headlong into the garden.

The world is blue, crystalline and silver, and everything beyond the windows seems to be in energetic dancing motion. I could watch the mystery play or pageant from the windows here all day long, but the Lanark Highlands are beckoning, and my wild friends there will be hungry. We are off to the woods this morning to feed the deer and the birds, but before I did anything else at all, I just had to go out and admire my sparkling garden for a while.

First Storm of the Season

Yesterday, there was snow, then there were several hours of razor-edged cutting ice pellets, and late in the day, there was a drenching rain which froze as it fell, an excoriating wind which lacerated the faces, ears and hands of hapless pedestrians and obdurate wanderers.

Walking was a wet and treacherous business, and so much for the first winter photos of the pretty blue (but very wet) snow in the garden - the first snows turned rapidly to ice, slush and puddles, and the streets here became wickedly slick and slippery.

The day was beautiful for all that, and it was delightful to walk out among the first snows of the season for an hour or two. Until the rain and the winds made their appearance in the afternoon, the old ash trees in the garden behind the little blue house in the village were astonishing - they were magical, magnificent and quite beyond written description. The first snowfall of the season made everything new again.

If I had been little younger and more agile, and there had been more snow, I would have been building artful snowmen and making angels in the snow.

Mama Says Om - Time

My grandmother's pocket watch. . . . Grandmother travelled beyond the fields we know twenty years ago, but I still have her pocket watch, and it lives in its velvet box in the drawer of my night table. I take the watch out often, and I never do it without thinking of her, with boundless love and a gratitude which goes beyond mere words.

Grandmother was my oasis of calm and my sanctuary when I was a child. She taught me about compassion, gratitude and the great silence - she taught me about love, tolerance, connection, and the golden rule. She taught me about wild places and walking mindfully, wherever my travels took me and whatever life delivered to my doorstep. She imparted useful everyday skills: how to grow herbs, build a fire and bake bread in a woodstove, how to tell time using the old pocket watch or by the position of the sun in the sky, about the elements and the five directions, how to find my own way home through the dark woods and the gloaming.

Fifty years later, as I share grandmother's priceless legacy with my own grandchildren, her pocket watch rests easy in my hand while we are all pottering along together. I am very conscious that if I should live for several centuries, I shall never achieve even a small measure of her grace, her wit, her wisdom and her solid Quaker goodness. I still miss grandmother so much, even after all these years. Have I mentioned how beautiful she was, how radiant?