looking within

The first day of winter is cold here, I am glad. Yesterday morning was not so good for me – there was an issue about too much money and the company we use for our charge card business. The details are not worth typing but the vulnerable and helpless feeling that eventually caused anger was something that barreled into my quiet morning and set the tone for my day – some high tech contemporary garbage that intrudes into our lives and we have to find resolve with some automated robo system- you know what I’m saying!  

At some point, I just wanted to drop out of this 21^st century hocus pocus, virtual, click click, digital, plastic world – I wanted to isolate myself from this insanity. I thought of ways to retreat – liquidate, find a simple house in a simple town and detach. All of this happened the morning after I had been to Lafayette to buy a few paints and a brush – I became witness to and part of the Christmas shopping mania in a big city/town. I really could not absorb how much stuff is out there for us to buy – I don’t have the mental capacity for that amount of volume - anyway, thus began the perfect storm – let me out of this century!!

 

Well, I’m still here…and today is much better. I have my new paints, the weather is Christmassy, my house smells like evergreen and I’m in Loreauville where there is no mall or big box stores – only my chickens and my patch of earth that I have lived on for nearly 28 years. I think the point of all this rambling (and venting) is that we all go through these little dust storms but then it gets better, the dust settles. But during this storm I was forced to reevaluate some things and I reached a higher level – and that’s what is supposed to happen. Is that what we call wisdom?

Today begins the winter solace the full cold Moon will be out on the 28^th - hopefully in a clear cold winter sky. I find so much opportunity for reflection and renewal in the middle of winter as I watch how Nature sheds her luster and her protection so nobly - how she is brought to her bare bones and survives it, she gets through it only to reintroduce herself in spring. She does this each year. I suppose this is some kind of cleansing, purging that is necessary to grow and, because of my beliefs, I feel it is something I should follow – unlike man’s decrees; Nature’s laws are consistent and non-discriminate. So, I begin this winter with that in mind – the season to purge – both my thoughts and my things and in spring I hope I have looked within and am ready for the awakening of another opportunity to bloom.

I don’t know that I will write again before Christmas so I wish you pure and pronounced moments during this holiday season that will become soothing memories in the years to come – moments that find you outside looking at the Christmas sky, moments that include hugs and warm smiles and moments that find you alone in a cozy chair stopping to think about yourself and what is really important while welcoming this starkness that is winter. For it is this nakedness, that allows us to find some answers exposed there against the bareness and beauty that is Nature.

Happy Christmas.

Walden

 

b u

p s