Happy New Year! It's deep Biboon

The January first morning sunlight (at least that's what we think it is) caused the local trees to cast Northwest-pointed shadows across the snow. The morning shadows point toward the direction from which Winter's prevailing winds blow. An infrequently appearing sun has reached its nadir and started a slow climb back toward the Northern sky. By Summer, remember that season?, our tree-shadows will be aimed West-Southwest. Although it never gets too cold to snow, snow is more frequent when warmer temperatures seem to bring cloudy skies, or maybe it's the cloudy skies that bring warmer temperatures.

According to Linda LeGarde Grover, author of Onigamiising, seasons of an Ojibwe year, the Ojibwe people consider Winter (Biboon) the story telling season. We caucasians are members of a culture based on the written word rather than oral tradition, so many of us view Winter as a story-reading season. With books, we gain in breadth and convenience of access to stories, but lose in warmth of access to and contact with live story-tellers.

Nevertheless, we are grateful for all of the books full of wonderful stories to read. We are even more grateful that we can spend most of our Biboon time inside a warm home reading those books when it gets as cold as it has been the past few days. We'll be surprised if temperatures around here get above zero today. The last time we checked, our wind chill was still hovering around minus 25℉.

It was much rarer for temperatures as cold as we regularly get in Minnesota to occur in eastern Massachusetts, especially right along the coast where we were most often to be found. Sometimes, though, it did get cold enough for even the salty brackish water in Boston Harbor to freeze. Those were notable days, but we don't remember if the very cold temperatures were accompanied by sunshine, clouds, or some of each.

look for a super full moon tonight

Photo by J. Harrington

Later today, early tonight, don't forget to bundle up and take a look at tonight's supermoon, the first of two this month,

                     Windigo

By Louise Erdrich

For Angela

The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.

You knew I was coming for you, little one,

when the kettle jumped into the fire.

Towels flapped on the hooks,

and the dog crept off, groaning,

to the deepest part of the woods.

In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.

Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot

and called you to eat.

But I spoke in the cold trees:

New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still.

The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.

Copper burned in the raw wood.

You saw me drag toward you.

Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.

You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.

I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.

Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered

from the bushes we passed

until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.

Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full

of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill

all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth

and I carried you home,

a river shaking in the sun.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.