These snow days are sweet with wonder. The white carpet ensconces us warmly, allowing a deep simmering. The simmering distills to peace.
A soul distilled from simmering shimmers with radiance reflecting the peace within.
Sweet, soft glow across the snow. Oneness of white.
Time stills.
“There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.” – Joseph Wood Krutch
“Lo. sifted through the winds that blow, Down comes the soft and silent snow, White petals from the flowers that grow In the cold atmosphere.” -George W. Bungay
“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
~Christopher McCandless
Oh yes each day, every last one of them, whether spent at home in the familiar, or on a new exotic adventure, holds the promise of a different sun, and an endlessly changing horizon. Taking the time to absorb these wonders, in the new encounter with the often explored, or with the totally new experience, brings wonder into the moment, into our days, into our lives.
The picture above is from home, the one below from Bryce Canyon National Park, and the one below that from Amelia Island, Florida, and the final one from this year’s Christmas Day at home – a new and different sun as the sun rises to begin a new day each and every one…
Is it enough to be you, as you are right now? Is it enough to be present and not consumed by doing? Is it enough not to need anything?
This video by “The Mrs” examines self image, and the book I just finished, “The Map of Enough” ponders what it may look like to be satisfied with now – with where you live, what you have and who you are…
As the New Year of 2015 moves closer, I am examining this concept of enough.
Thankful for all that is and being present to this gratitude is enough more and more of the time.
The fullness comes from the inner gifts, never from outer appearances. From the wildness and completeness of nature, and not from those things that are contrived. From present moments and not busyness. From awareness. From taking a long sweet breath of life, as it is, now.
On this beautiful winter solstice day the myriad gifts of the warm and nurturing Sun are acknowledged.
There is thankfulness for the grace in the giving. Appreciation too for the countless ways we are sustained and lifted up by the radiance.
Now, even as winter settles in, the hours of sunlight grow longer and we have the potential with each day for more luminance and warmth, accelerating inner growth and deepening.
Roots reach for depths unexplored.
The knowledge that the sun lengthens its shining each day allows for a serene, restful absorption of the season. No need to yearn for Spring. It is coming. .. In the meantime, the present of winter is to be savored. Deep snow and long nights. Love and light. Dark mornings by candlelight. Warm fires. Good books. Snowshoe walks. Life.
“The day will be what you make it,
so rise,
like the sun,
and burn.”
-William C. Hannan
“…the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born on the night of winter solstice.”
Creating a bridge between the landscape and the humans who inhabit the land, barns provide a place of sanctuary and shelter, where hay is stored, cows are milked, and little furry babies are born. The photos are of Montana barns with one exception. The first photo below is from the West Virginia land where my Dad was born, and where my Grandparents farmed and made their life. My Dad grew up on this land. I remember my Grandfather there in that barn, milking the cows and giving squirts of that fresh milk to the kittens that gathered. There were horses in the field, chickens roaming, a big garden, wheat, pigs in the pen. My Grandfather built this barn and it was a work of structural genius.
From a frosted October sunrise, this is Grandpa’s barn.
“Were I called upon to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the mist.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
“The joy of looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.”
