Thursday Poem - Winter Light

It's a milkiness poured from
a great glass bottle,
a carafe of blanc de blanc, iced,
a light shot with pale gold,
opalescent blue,
the distillation of pearl . . . .
In this icy light, the ghostly fronds
of ice ferns cover the glass,
as the sky descends,
erasing first the far blue hills,
the cornfield hatch-marked with stubble,

coming to our street—

the sky flinging itself
down to the ground.
And the earth, like a feather bed,
accumulates layer on layer. . . .
The snow bees are released from their hive,
jive and jitter, sting at the blinds.
Down here, under this glazed china cup,
the minor fracas of our little lives
is still under the falling flakes.
And the great abalone shell of the sky
contains us, bits of muscle, tiny mollusks.
These winter nights
are never black and dense,
but white, starlight
dancing off the land.
And then the luminous dawns,
the pearled skies full of hope
no matter what else we know.

Barbara Crooker

Wordless Wednesday - In the Driver's Seat

The View From here

The most honored guest was unfashionably late in her arrival this time around, but hallelujah, here she is at last in her icy robes, and I am happy to see her. Spencer loves snow too. My beloved, not so much...

No more gazing out the study window and sighing at the bleached taupe and pallid grey on offer outside.  No more pottering about with wellies, raincoat, camera and umbrella, no more forlorn splashing through puddles on the way up (or down) the street.

Every field and hedgerow, every tree and forlorn branch - all  are transformed by snow and frost this morning. All are magical and made new by the presence of the lady in her long white robes.

Just a little snow...

Sunday - Saying Yes to the World

When we walk, holding stories in us, do they touch the ground through our footprints? What is this power of metaphor, by which we liken a thing we see to a thing we imagine or have seen before — the granite crag to an old crystalline heart — changing its form, allowing animation to suffuse the world via inference? Metaphor, perhaps, is the tame, the civilised, version of shamanic shapeshifting, word-magic, the recognition of stories as toothed messengers from the wilds. What if we turned the old nursery rhymes and fairytales we all know into feral creatures once again, set them loose in new lands to root through the acorn fall of oak trees? What else is there to do, if we want to keep any of the wildness of the world,and of ourselves?
Sylvia Linsteadt, Turning Our Fairy Tales Feral Again

The Yule Moon of December

Last night's full moon was the last full moon of this calendar year, although it seems only yesterday that Spencer and I were out in the garden shivering and watching the first full moon of the year rise over our sleeping trees. Whatever the time of year, trees on the hill do their best to frame the rising moon, leafed out in spring and summer, robed in russet leaves in autumn, bare branched and embracing in winter.  It has been an unusually mild season so far, and many oak trees on the crest are still wearing their leaves.

The thirteen moons of a calendar year wear different names, faces and personalities according to one's culture, where one happens to live in the world and what the seasonal activities of one's native place are. There are common threads or themes to lunar lore though, and the moon's names provide food for thought about the nature of community, hearth and connection. They speak eloquently of timeless natural rhythms and the calendar of the seasons: springtime and green things springing from the earth, planting and weeding, hunting, harvesting and gathering in, rest and regeneration.

December's moon falls at the darkest time of year in the north, and for me it will always be the Elder Moon or the Long Nights Moon.  The elder tree is December's symbol in the Celtic tree calendar, and this month's moon falls during the darkest time of the year, so both names are apt.  This is also the month of my birthday, and so I have particular fondness for the winter orb shining above us all by night.

It makes me happy to think that when January's full moon appears, daylight hours will be lengthening, and we will be on our way to Spring and warmth. Having said that, we will be making our slow and careful way through bitter cold, deep snow, (hopefully) and high winds, and there is a long way to go. Now and then, the vaults of heaven will be full of stars at night, and there will be confetti skies at sunrise. Such celestial doings make journeying through the Great Round a joyous undertaking, and in all the frenetic "toing and froing" of the holiday season, that is a fine thought to cling to.

We also know this moon as the: Ashes Fire Moon, Bauhinia Moon, Bear Moon, Beginning of the Winter Moon, Big Bear's Moon, Big Winter Moon, Birch Moon, Center Moon's Younger Brother, Cold Moon, Cold Time Moon, Bitter Moon, Deer Shed Their Horns Moon, Dumannos Moon, Eccentric Moon, Evergreen Moon, Frozen over Moon, Heavy Snow Moon, Holy Moon, Hellebore Moon, Her Winter Houses Moon, Hunting Moon, Ice Lasts All Day Moon, Ice Moon, Little Finger Moon, Little Spirits Moon, Long Nights Moon, Long Snows Moon, Midwinter Moon, 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 Buffalo Cow's Fetus Is Getting Large, Moon When Deer Shed Their Horns, Moon When Little Black 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, Narcissus Moon, Night Moon, Oak Moon, Paulownia Moon, Peach Moon, Poinsettia Moon, Popping Trees Moon, Poppy Moon, Real Goose Moon, Sap Moon, Sjelcasen Moon, Solstice Moon, Snow Moon, Star Frost Moon, Turning Moon, Twelfth Moon, Under Burn Moon, White Orchid Tree Moon, Winter Maker Moon, Winter Moon, World Darkness Moon, Yule Moon

The last full moon of the year rose on Christmas night, so it is (and ought to be) called the "Yule Moon".  Among other monikers, I also like "Midwinter Moon" and "Little Spirits Moon". 

Merry Christmas

Whatever shape your observances and festivities wear this day,

good wishes are flowing your way from here.

May there be light and music and feasting in your life.

May all good things come to you.

Thursday Poem - The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day

One of my personal Yuletide holiday traditions is to read the five volumes of Susan Cooper's magnificent "Dark is Rising" cycle.  Yule has just passed by, but her lovely Christmas Revels poem is perfect for this whole holiday interval in which we celebrate the return of light to the world.

Wordless Wednesday - North Wind Moves the Trees

The Morning After

On the first morning after the winter solstice, it is still dark after seven, and raining with intention. The cobblestones leading to her threshold are glossy, and the street beyond the windows is a strand of shiny wetness flowing into the distance.

She craves tea this morning, not a healthy mug of green stuff at first, but an aromatic pond of Asian tea, masala chai perhaps, Assam or Darjeeling.  Then she remembers an artfully painted canister in the tea cupboard and decides that this morning's rite will be a bowl of matcha.

She puts matches to candle wicks, drinks her tea and the light in gratefully. Rain or no rain, this will be a fine day.

Tending the Light at Yule

Happy, happy Yule

Happy Yule to you and your clan.

May the light of the dancing star at the center of our universe be yours.

May all good things come to you.

Look, winter trees are wearing stars...

Friday Ramble - Solstice

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 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.

24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point), from the I Ching or Book of Changes

Sunday is the eve of Yule, one of the four truly pivotal points in the calendar year, and the I Ching describes this brief interval in the Great Round more eloquently than I ever could. The winter solstice is one of only two times in the calendar year (along with the summer solstice) when the sun seems to stand still for a brief interval - that is what "solstice" means, that the sun is standing still. This week's word has been around in one form or another since the beginning times, and it comes to us from the Latin noun sōlstitium, itself a blend of the noun sōl [sun] and the verb sistere [to stand still].

December days are short and dark and sometimes icy cold, dense clouds from here to there most of the time.  Although it is not the case this year, the earth below our feet is usually sleeping easy under a blanket of snow and glossy ice.  For all that, there is a feeling of movement in the landscape, a clear sense that vibrant (and welcome) change is on its way.  Sunlight is a scarce quantity here in winter, and we look forward to having a few more minutes of sunlight every single blessed day after this weekend - until next June when sunlight hours will begin to wane once more.  The first few months of the year will be frigid going, but hallelujah, there will be sunlight now and again.

As I build a fire in the old fireplace downstairs, I find myself thinking of the ancestors and their early seasonal rites, how they too must have watched winter skies, fed the fires burning on their hearths for warmth, lit candles to drive the dark away and rejoiced in this poignant turning when the light returns.

Our solstice rites are quiet and of some years standing: a trek into the woods and a brisk walk along the trail with grain, apples and freshly cut cedar for the deer, suet and seed for the birds.  On the way home, we will deliver fruitcake (my great grandmother's recipe) and small gifts to friends in the highlands, then return to the little blue house in the village for candlelight, firelight and mugs of tea. We will entertain silence as darkness falls and give thanks for the returning light.

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.

The winter solstice is only a few days away, so here is the beautiful poem written for the Winter Solstice by Dolores Stewart Riccio and published in her exquisite Doors to the Universe. It is posted here with the kind permission of the poet.

Wordless Wednesday - Memento

On the Edge of a Foggy Hill

Recent weeks have been wet and dark for the most part, heavy cloud over everything, and scarcely a ray of sunrise or sunset to be be seen, just endless twilight in all directions. When a lake of blue sky appears overhead, there is cause for celebration. 

For an hour or so after dawn, lacy scraps of frost remain on fences, leaves and field grasses, but temperatures are mild and the white stuff undergoes a swift transformation when sunlight touches it, condensing and rising into the air like fine silvery smoke. Frost picks out the tracks of rakes and hay wagons across the hill, but not for long. A light mist rises from the nearby Clyde river at every bend in its winding journey, playing over the trees, fields and old stones. Here and there in the mist are the smudged outlines of browsing deer and wild turkeys.

On such days, a pearly gray stillness lies over everything, and the expression wabi sabi describes it as well as anything can be said to do that. There is a kind of tranquil melancholy; a non-attachment beyond all coming and going which honors tathata or suchness, the turning of the seasons and the perfect spontaneous unfolding of the world around us.

Here we are in the middling pages of December, and this year, there has been little or snow so far, just rain, rain, rain.  For years, I have stood on this hillside and marveled at how it looks in rain or shine or snow, seen against clouds or a clear blue sky or wrapped in mist. How many images have I have captured here?  My old bones are not dancing as they consider the snow coming along next weekend, but the doddering scribe and photographer feels differently.  She remembers the sound of snow falling on her favorite hillside, and she rejoices.

Starting Out

Sunday - Saying Yes to the World

For the future residents of the earth: may their world still be packed with mysteries.  May they still grow giddy on the eve of a great adventure.  May they become more responsible to one another and the planet.  May they keep their taste for the renegade.  May they never lose their sense of innocence and wonder.  May they live to chase brash and astonishing dreams.  May they return to tell me, if such a thing is possible, so that I can know the answers to a thousand scrupulous puzzles, hear of whole civilizations that bloomed and vanished, learn what travel to other solar systems has revealed and behold the marvels that arose while I was gone.  If that’s not possible, then I will have to make due with the playgrounds of mortality, and hope that at the end of my life I can say simply, wholeheartedly that it was grace enough to be born and live.

Diane Ackerman, Deep Play

Along the Road in a Fog

Friday Ramble - Winter's Eye

Leaves crunching underfoot or rattling like sabres in in the wind, frost limning cedar fence rails along the ridge, blowsy plumes of field grasses and reeds on the edge of the western field—all are fine representations of the season and plangent leitmotifs in the windy musical work that is early winter.

The intense hues of autumn field and forest fade as the season marches onward, settling slowly, and with many deep sighs, into the subdued tints of winter: soft bronzes, creams, beiges and silvery greys, small splashes here and there of winey red, burgundy, russet and a midnight blue almost iridescent in its sheen and intensity, but oh so fragile.

December frosts make themselves known as sugary drifts over old wood and on fallen leaves almost transparent in their lacy textures. An owl's artfully barred feather lies in thin sunlight under a fragrant cedar and seems to be giving off a graceful pearly light of its own. The weedy residents of field and fen seem to be cavorting in plumed and fuzzy hats.

One needs another lens and tuning for winter, a different sort of vision, a song in a different key. The senses are performing a seasonal shift of their own, moving carefully into the consideration of things small, still and muted, but complete within themselves and perfect, even if they are cold and wet.

Thursday Poem - Storytelling

Come in out of the darkness.
Come in where the fire casts shadows of longing.
Sit near each other. Hold hands

while I tell you a story that has never been told,
a story with music, a flute and singing, a drum and dancing,
a story of life’s circle and the hungry wolves

waiting for caribou, and the caribou lingering
over a feast of lichen, and ravens poised in the trees
at the edges of the wolves’ eyes,

a story with a grandmother spider
stealing a piece of the sun,
a story with medicine plants and sacred weeds,

a story of how men and women found each other,
of how coyote got his cunning, of arrow boy,
of the owl’s beak tapping, always the owl, the death bird,

and the mouse, timorous, scuttling into its den,
a story of you, and you, and you.
What does it mean this dream fruit?

Nothing more than to peel and eat
the sweet juicy flesh, to let its seeds
become part of your spirit.

Long after I am gone
you will remember a story that never happened
how things that never were came into being.

Dolores Stewart,
from Doors to the Universe

One of my favorite poems, written by Dolores Stewart Riccio who writes gorgeous poetry as Dolores Stewart and delightfully magical novels as Dolores Stewart Riccio - perfect for the closing pages of this calendar year.

Wordless Wednesday - On the Edge

Going, going, gone...

Sunday - Saying Yes to the World

We have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words.  It is an extraordinary privilege to be accorded a human life, with self-reflexive consciousness that brings awareness of our own actions and the ability to make choices. It lets us choose to take part in the healing of our world.
Joanna Macy

Sunset Paints the Sky

Maxfield Parrish would have loved it.

Friday Ramble - Shelter

Shelter's a word dear to a cronish heart when winter arrives and icy winds blow. Daylight hours are short, and I become insular, retreating to stacks of books, lighted candles, mugs of tea and a Morris chair by the hearth, pulling draperies closed at dusk and trying to tune out the world outside.  In these dark few weeks before Yule, I find myself turning ever inward and thinking about the tiny flame at the heart of things, its tender bloom promising warmth, sunlight and longer days somewhere up the trail, if we can only hang on.  Alas, these are merely December's beginning pages, and there are several weeks to go before the light returns, at least noticeably so.

The etymology of shelter is obscure, but the word has been with us since the late sixteenth century, finding its origins perhaps in the much earlier Old English scieldtruma, scield meaning shield + truma meaning a unit of fighting men or warriors. Synonyms include: aerie, anchorage, apartment, asylum, cave, cove, cover, covert, crib, defense, den, digs, dwelling, guard, guardian, harbor, haven, hermitage, hide, hideaway, hideout, hole in the wall, home, house, housing, hut, lodge, lodging, nest, oasis, port, preserve, protector, quarters, rack, refuge, retirement, retreat, roof, roost, safety, sanctuary, screen, security, shack, shade, shadow, shed, shield, tent, tower, turf, umbrella.

By modern definition, a shelter is a structure or enclosure of some sort, a cabin or a cave, an embracing tree or thicket, a harbor shielded by guardian hills and out of the sea wind. We all have our shelters and sanctuaries, and the trappings are highly personal.  For deer and wild turkeys, it's the protection and nourishment afforded by woodland cedar groves in winter.  For hibernating bears, it's the secluded leaf-strewn dens where they can sleep away winter.  For rabbits and hares, it's snug burrows in the earth and the overhanging branches of evergreens shielding them from icy temperatures and the rapt attention of predators. For me (for the most part), it's a fire on the hearth, a mug of Darjeeling tea and a comfortable chair out of the elements.

For local bison herds, shelter is a movable feast, and they create their own wherever they happen to be, bracing themselves against the wind, lowering their lavishly maned heads into the white stuff and standing fast. The great creatures think nothing of napping in deep snow, and when they move through it, they move together, facing directly into the elements rather than turning away as domestic cattle do, wild and woolly Highland cattle being the exception perhaps.

I could learn a thing or three from the bison, and I will be working on that this winter, just hanging out by the fence and watching them breathe in and out in the icy wind, facing into the elements myself and trying to stand as firmly and mindfully as they do. There will (of course) be layers and layers of warm clothing involved, a camera or three and a whole bag of lenses. Now, if only the snow would stay around and make the experience complete..........

Thursday Poem - Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte

Wordless Wednesday - Let There Be Light

Calling the Sun Home

Days grow ever shorter and snow falls now and then, but does not stay.  Rivers and lakes are freezing over, and an icy north wind howls in the eaves of our little blue house in the village. At nightfall, I pull draperies closed and shut out the gloom beyond the windows, taking refuge in warmth and delight in small seasonal rites. I brew pots of tea (one after the other), pummel loaves of bread, concoct fiery curries and spicy cookies, draw, read and dream, plot gardens for next year (more roses and herbs, perhaps a whole Medicine Wheel garden) and forge grand schemes which will probably never see the light of day.

As dark as the days ahead may be, there is light to come. Here we are in December, and that means that in only three weeks, our days will begin to lengthen again. Hallelujah! It will be months until it is warm and light here again, but at least we will be on our way, and Yule just may be my favorite day in the whole turning year. When it arrives, there will be celebrations and silliness, candles, music and mulled cider to drive away the darkness and welcome old Helios back to the world. He is still here of course - it's the Old Wild Mother's seasonal wobble that makes him seem more distant than he actually is at this time of the year.  We and the hallowed earth are in constant spinning motion, not the magnificent star at the center of our universe.

Every Sunday from yesterday until the Solstice, I am lighting a candle at dusk in an observance called the Advent Sun Wheel, a seasonal rite crafted by the late Helen Farias, founder of the Beltane Papers and later adapted by Waverly Fitzgerald. In so doing, I join a circle of kindred spirits in honoring the fruitful darkness and calling the sun home.

Elderly magpie creature that I am and a passionate collector of timely lore, I am very interested in your own "before Yule" practices. Happy December everyone!