Winter Solstice

A very happy winter solstice, and a walk with Juno to the top of the mountain on this very clear bright morning, with wintery sentiment from the red toyon berries. All the new growth is overtaking the dead trees from the wildfire (now six years since), the old trees still standing appear silver and artfully dignified in their rightful place, here, there, everywhere, in the crisp winter light.

((click 1st image to go to slide show))

Winter Solstice

This morning at first light I took my camera out to photograph a few for the post, but when I tried to upload them, nothing happened, so borrowing photos from the archives . . .

Transition into winter excites me, when inwardly I build anew. This morning my thoughts drift back to a dreamscape I had more than a decade ago, a vivid dream that I was sitting, nested in an ethereal kind of place, on a snowy crag, an unreal pillar of rock jutting up into the stratosphere. I was comfortable and warm, in a place of incessant night yet with illuminating snow below and snowflakes softly blowing around me and  as if I were brought up into an existentialist heavenly place, and I was unafraid of the elements.  This dreamscape is ever present in my spiritualistic sense of myself, and although the dream was long ago the memory of it is etched in my conscience, at times reminding me to hold steadfast as I make my way through transition, unafraid, into new unknowns.

Today being the Winter Solstice the shortest and darkest day in the northern hemisphere, I ponder still that ethereal place in the highest of heights, and the creative territory ahead, landing me again in my wintery thoughts. I feel so calm this morning early as the rain begins again, softly hitting the roof, washing my worries away. So it is with a rain-fulfilled contented sigh that I feel a close of the year, while everything beds down for a nice winter nap. Happy Solstice to Everyone!