New Years Eve

I like this one!   My friends and I surely don’t look this old, but still…   Someone has said that ghosts walk at Christmas, and during the week between the old and new year I think of how many I know. I also ponder the mystery of Time.  There’s a wonderful short story by Borges

On the sixth day of Christmas

“my true love gave to me….six geese a -laying…”   the 12 Days of Christmas which begins on Christmas and ends on Jan. 6, the traditional Feast of the Epiphany. Here is the information from Wikipedia: “Little Christmas (Irish: Nollaig na mBan, lit. ‘Women’s Christmas’), also known as Old Christmas, is one of the traditional

Cats in the cradle

  Lately I’ve had a good laugh from photos posted on the internet of family cats inserting themselves into Nativity scenes.   You may enjoy these, too.         and finally,      

The Christmas Tree is a tree of fable

  Happy Christmas to all!   Here’s a great poem by C. Day Lewis: The Christmas Tree Put out the lights now! Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzled In oriole plumes of flame, Tinselled with twinkling frost fire, tasseled With stars and moons—the same That yesterday hid in the spinney and had no

Christmas Eve images

These are evocative for me: by Richard Savoie 19th Century Christmas Southern Mansion,  Cape May New Jersey     photo by Dave Callahan Christmas card  by Mickey O’Neil McGrath    

all the singing is in the tops of trees

    Here’s a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver: White-Eyes BY MARY OLIVER In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees where the wind-bird   with its white eyes shoves and pushes among the branches. Like any of us   he wants to go to sleep, but he’s restless— he has an

The top is spinning slower

Thanks to Christine Whittemore for sharing this. here is a beautiful poem by Ann Drysdale: Solstice The top is spinning slower, the sound changes. It lurches on the last part of its story and those who know this are already grieving. Raven coughs like an old man in the morning clearing his cluttered pipes so as

Solstice thoughts

  Richard Heinberg, author of Celebrate the Solstice: Honoring the Earth’s Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and Ceremony (Quest Books, 1993) describes the solstices as “times of danger and opportunity; times for special alertness and aliveness.” In Iran, families often kept fires burning all night to assist the battle between the light and dark forces. In ancient Rome,

Let me cover you

Monet   “On the first day of winter, the earth awakens to the cold touch of itself. Snow knows no other recourse except this falling, this sudden letting go over the small gnomed bushes, all the emptying trees. Snow puts beauty back into the withered and malnourished, into the death-wish of nature and the deliberate

How much can come, how much can go?

Art by Ron Gonsalves   Here’s a poem by May Sarton:   “Before going to bed After a fall of snow I look out on the field Shining there in the moonlight So calm, untouched and white Snow silence fills my head After I leave the window.   Hours later near dawn When I look