Darkness doesn’t fall. It rises from the earth, from the valley floor, toward the first few stars among countless stars gathering at the altar of night. Something calls us now, to open our hearts to what can't be seen but surrounds us. ---Excerpt, "Swan River Valley Song, Thanksgiving" by Oscar Houck
Hello Lovelies—
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Snow falls overnight. I wake to 5 degrees and nearly half a foot on the deck: Winter asserting its icy grip. The limbs of trees are flocked in white. Two foxes eye me from tSnow falls overnight. I wake to 5 degrees and nearly half a foot on the deck: Winter asserting its icy grip. The limbs of trees are flocked in white. Two foxes eye me from the yard.
Inside, in the dim early light, I make strong coffee in the largest French press. Greg sleeps in. The 22-year old cat, whose nightly perambulations keep us both awake, sleeps happily on my side of the bed.
I go out to shovel a path across the front of the deck and then to the stairs, where one of the foxes watches.
They are more daring these days, tip-toeing up onto the deck to eat birdseed, to stare at us sitting by the fire.
The woods are utterly silent. Occasionally, I see a squirrel skitter across the snow.
Now is the deepest part of winter.
My movement across the mountain is restricted unless I strap on snowshoes, though I can walk the plowed road for a mile loop in either direction.
February is the month of stillness without distraction. Its cold and quiet compel me inside.
I know I am waiting, holding my breath. The urgency of this emptiness is a burning thing.
Last night I dreamed I was on a mountain road with Greg when a large delivery truck pass us going fast. It could not make the curve ahead so it skidded to a stop and tried to back up and reposition itself, only to slide backwards off the mountain.
I’ve had this dream in one form or another for years. Usually I am in the vehicle as it slides downhill and I can’t see where I am going. All I can do is wait for impact.
“Call 911,” I say to Greg in the dream. I am running ahead, imagining that the driver is already dead, crushed inside the carcass of the truck.
Suddenly, the truck comes racing up over and embankment and back onto the road in front of us. The box of the truck is battered, pieces of panel are missing, but the driver is okay—cheerful even—as he waves. The terror and dread in me gives way to relief and surprise.
I did not expect survival.
And that, in a nutshell, is February for me.
I compel myself to listen, in this month of listening.
Eagles and owls are nesting now. The foxes bark out territory for mating. The other day, I heard the sliding spring nesting song of a chickadee. Rosy finches arrive from their winter ground.
All of it calls me---my heart, a compass, bending toward light.
Big love,
Karen
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What Calls You
It’s just past Imbolic, the celebration of the Goddess Brigid, time in the pagan calendar when we burn away the last of the old and gather seeds for what we will grow in the coming season. This is the time of visioning and imagination, the time of opening ourselves to possibility.
This week, I invite you, through ritual, through creating to make space and begin hear what calls you, to gather the threads of the new year to you.
Ready?
First, a ritual.
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