Winter Solstice

Our weekend was packed - cousin sleepover, birthday party, carrolling party, family breakfast, singing at our congregation's solstice service.
But by far however the most treasured of the events is our candlelight Winter Solstice walk by the river with our friends.


Yes friends the darkness wins, but these short days so celebrate light:
Today the lemon sunrise lasted a few hours until sunset,
all day the snow glowed pink and purple in the trees.
This is not a time of black and white, my friends, outside us.
Among us, too, let's sing what winter forces us to know:
Joy and colour bloom despite the night.
We measure warth by love , not degrees.
~ Patricia Monaghan

Snow in December

Seeds

dry seeds scatter
from my hand into the wind
one clings
as if to say there is in me
something yet to be
- Jeanne Emrich,

Seeds seen on various hikes this week.

Within the seed's case
a secret is held
Its fertile whisper
shapes a song
- Joan Halifax, Marrow

We seem to be developing a tradition of spending the last day of our vacation on the beach, squeezing every last bit from the final day.

The Muses

We've lost our hearts

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
~ George Bernard Shaw