Friday Rambles - Winter Returns

A brilliant cold moon rose around midnight last night and was midheaven around five this morning.  Luna was a radiant, fey and insistent presence through the bedroom draperies, and sleeping was well nigh impossible. Temperatures were several degrees below zero overnight, and as I watched the moon from my pillow, I could hear the north wind dancing along the roof shingles and cantering briskly through the eaves of the little blue house in the village.

There was fresh snow in the garden at sunrise this morning, and there was ice in the heart of the birdbath, the sound of snapping and crackling as winter birds danced from twig to brittle twig among the bare shrubberies and did a little chilled singing to greet the day.

Now and then, there are brilliant blue days in late March and early April, but we are back to winter for the next several days, leaden skies from here to there, bitter winds out of the north, snow and ice pellets, sometimes freezing rain. We wandered in the woods for a few hours this week, but after only a few clicks, my fingers were blue, and back into heavy gloves they went.

Wonder of wonders, the gnarly old willows down by the creek were putting up lovely furry catkins anyway, and the icicles below cradled tiny branches and fragile scraps of green. Snow blanketed everything in my favorite woodland clearing, but water in the little stream at my feet was running free and singing. Song and flow are still percolating in my thoughts this morning, a few days later.  A strange blending of seasonal images and motifs perhaps, but this is what my native place looks like this year, and I am contented with it.

There is rising everywhere as Gaia Sophia awakens and opens her arms.  There is light in the icicles, in thawing streams and fuzzy little willow buds. I cling to the thought and turn my collar up against the gelid wind.