On the eve of Winter Solstice

If life were a movie, the next few days would be the trailer for late February, early March. That's when average daytime highs once again reach and exceed freezing. We're considering this December thaw an early Yuletide present. It goes nicely with the fact that, starting the day after tomorrow, daylight becomes microscopically longer each day. Later today or early tomorrow it will be time to see if the portable fire pit can be made portable, rather than frozen in place, so we can enjoy a Solstice fire in the drive. Alternatively, if we keep the flames small enough, we can leave it where it is. Come Spring we'll get some pavers to put under the fire pit legs that keep freezing into the ground. We could use the tractor to loosen it, but the fire pit may not survive that exercise.

Winter Solstice, 2018

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we touched on the Center for Humans and Nature "Kinship Project." That seems to fit well with our growing interest in zen and druidry. Although we suspect that Christmas will bring a new collection of unread books, we're getting a sense that this Winter it's time to reread some books that have been on our shelves for awhile. Among those are Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss. We hope, over the next couple of weeks, to lay out some strategies, activities and priorities for next year. High on that list will be a three sisters garden we never got around to planting this year and doing a better job of journaling so we'd be able to tell if it was the weather, laziness, competing priorities or none of the above that hindered us this year. We have the seeds and a vague memory about needing to get the Mantis tiller serviced so we could create mounds with it. This all brings back memories of a former landlord who often noted it wasn't doing the work that was so much trouble, it was getting organized and ready to do the work that took the most time and effort.

Anyhow, a Christmas present we promised ourselves is that next year we will bring (I almost wrote "try to bring" but, as Yoda teaches us "Do or do not. There is no try!") focus and order to our scattered interests. We're making limited progress following the Taoist observation that the longest journey begins with a single step.

We wish you a warm, wonderful, and brief Winter Solstice. May your days soon grow in light and wisdom!

Winter Solstice

By Hilda Morley

A cold night crosses

our path

                  The world appears

very large, very

round now       extending

far as the moon does

                                        It is from

the moon this cold travels

                                        It is

the light of the moon that causes

this night reflecting distance in its own

light so coldly

                                          (from one side of

the earth to the other)

                                        It is the length of this coldness

It is the long distance

between two points which are

not in a line        now

                                       not a

straightness       (however

straight) but a curve only,

silver that is a rock reflecting

                                                      not metal

but a rock accepting

distance

                     (a scream in silence

where between the two

points what touches

is a curve around the world

                                                      (the dance unmoving).

new york, 1969

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