“The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone,
is because they never really are.”
-MJ Rose
Rise Like the Sun and Burn
Welcome Back the Sun!!
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.”
-Joseph Campbell
Sanctuary & Shelter
What is it about barns? They just draw you in…
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.
Saying Nothing
“Saying nothing…
sometimes says the most.”
-Emily Dickinson
The Silence Has Been Waiting
This silence has been waiting for me.
I will be open to all it has to say.
The Art of Nature
“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.”
-Albert Einstein
Snow & Radiant Frost
“I love snow, snow, and all the forms of radiant frost.”
-Percy Shelley
Radiance
There is radiance here
in these unfolding years.
Simplicity deepens.
Alone-ness widens perspective.
Solitude forms a presence.
In the quietness the trees share their secrets
and the ravens tell their tales.
The mountains form the foundation of everything,
while the big sky holds them in a warm embrace.
The stilled mind cascades into wonder.
That is where the radiance lies, shimmering in that wonder.
I stay there now as often as I can.
Thank You!
A Blade of Grass
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
