Happy New Year!

Think there's nothing to do

In the garden

In the thick of winter?

This is the best Time to

Imagine and Plan and Dream!

Don't Be A Bear

It's easy today to hide from winter.  Are you spending your time huddled in front of the computer, counting down the days until warmer temperatures arrive?


Here are some pictures to entice you step outside and enjoy the magnificent snow-show you are missing. 

Bundle up and go outside.  Beauty is all around us.

The Snow Fairy

Be careful if you meet,

A fairy in the snow.

She'll cast on you a spell,

And never let you go.

She'll lure you far away,

To lands lost long ago.

Trapped in her fairy world,

It's all you'll ever know.

"Come faeries, take me out of this dull world,

for I would ride with you upon the wind..."

William Butler Yeats

The Birth of the Unconquerable Sun

The sun is a primal source of all light and warmth on Earth.

In winter,

as the sun takes its lowest path across the sky,

we languish in its absence

and seek other comforts

for our shorter days and longer nights.

We needn't worry.

As the Earth continues along its elliptical orbit,

the birth of the unconquerable sun is just around the corner.

The Frog King

The snow has finally fallen.  I believe it's here to stay.

This year the Frog King chose to ignore the council of his Advisor,

deciding to remain above ground

where he could continue to survey his pond.

To his unhappy Advisor he said,
"In the depths of winter I finally learned
there was in me an invincible summer."

by Albert Camus

The Advisor did not approve

of the King's decision,

and took his post with a most disgruntled air.

There's No Place Like Home

Black are my steps on silver sod;

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;

And tree and house, and hill and lake,

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

From Winter-Time by Robert Louis Stevenson

"No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye."

When we only allow time for a superficial glance, we miss the wonders that await a patient, closer look.  Looking around my November garden, I spot something that still has leaves: a rhododendron.

Endless multi-coloured dots

speckle burgundy leaves,

wondrous as a starlit night.

Buds wrapped tight

 like an Egyptian mummy,

to be reborn in the spring.

"No object is mysterious.  The mystery is your eye." 

Elizabeth Bowen

Winter Afternoons

There's a certain Slant of light -

Winter Afternoons -

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes -

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us -

We can find no scar,

But internal difference,

Where the Meanings, are -

None may teach it - Any -

'Tis the Seal Despair

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air -

When it comes, the Landscape listens,

Shadows - hold their breath -

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death -

Emily Dickinson