Friday Ramble - First of the Year

The Winter Solstice came and went, and light is slowly returning to the world. Northern days are growing longer, but the effects of December's turning are felt in their own good time. It will be a while before we sense real change.

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 in the woods 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.

"Crunch, crunch, crunch" went our booted feet yesterday as we made our way along the trail. 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 like water as squalls gusted through the whiskery trees. The shadows seemed deeper and more intense, more blue. Here and there, a leaf or a tiny sprig of frozen evergreen poked out of the light snow, and the color was a hopeful thing, one that not even the biting north wind could carry away in its gelid paws. I always wonder why there are not more words in the English language for such blustery air currents.

Resolutions this year??? In this time of world turbulence, suffering and uncertainty, my heart is not in making resolutions. There won't be any lofty aspirations scrawled on paper or etched in stone this time around. There will be just the same old work in progress, Beau and I lurching onward together, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. That will have to be enough, and we are OK with that.

As we ramble, we will keep the words of Osaka Koryu in mind. When we breathe in, we will breathe in the whole universe, and when we breathe out, we will breathe out the whole universe. We will go along together, paw in paw, and we will simply keep putting one foot in front of the other. As always, we will talk with the great trees and look for the light.