The burden and blessings of home.

~

~

The dirt road out (and in) blends into white hillside, disappears with the last storm, strong winds set it smooth, a white horizon before the black timber. Defining lines disappear.

~

(before the last storms, looking back at the burned mountains from far down at the paved road)

~

Naked aspen and stripped spruce hold the bounty of another early snow, fat and plump and plentiful on otherwise blatant branches.

Smoke in a steady stream trickles into the pink morning sky from the cabin I find myself living in this time.

~

~

Passing time. A season. This one of change. After a decade of dormancy.

Funny it would be now, in the snow, the time of year you’d expect us to curl into our cave and slow our breathing and wait out the long white season.

Instead we’re out there
in
of
a part of
together
with the elements

In snow so deep the horses have stopped pawing
we learn to breathe again.

~

~

Deep powder
Deep thoughts
Bury my burdens and cover the past
Watching each flake land on my hand
Remain for but a moment
Whilst a fairy dances within each one
Then turns to a drop of water against my humid flesh
And disappears
As will my burden
Vanish into the comfort of husband, home, four legged friends and a warm afternoon.

~

~

Maybe it will melt out. Some of it. Not all. Not for this season.

It begins. I accept, embrace, welcome with open arms.

The season of white descends, I tell to you with a shiver of excitement.

~

~

Silence in the snow as the river begin to freeze and traffic (what little remained from summer) has come to a halt. No one’s around for miles and miles and miles. No where I need to go. And next thing you know, the snowmobiles are out. At least the big old beast of a work sled with its gentler purr than the play sleds. Hauling fire wood. The best use yet for all these beetled killed trees. My version of a controlled burn. In my woodstove. And second best is this: Logs to build the walls of the next home we shall build together.

Death upon our own land becomes new life.

~

~

A grove of young trees
Needles blue green
Laden with seed cones
Red and ripe with life

Odd how beautiful and exotic it seems now here in the snow. Something I remember but have not seen in so long.

(Desire cultivating devotion.)

Lettuce seeds in the planters along the front windows have sprouted.
Things grow.

~

~

We say it’s too late to leave Nature alone to manage Herself, but I laugh to see her power of rejuvenation no matter how much we mess up. I may not have much hope in humans, but the Earth, I think she’ll be just fine.

Seeing the forest for the trees. Alternating with seeing the trees for the forest. Every needle. Brown and fallen on the snow.

~

~

And then suddenly.
The young ones bust through the whitewashed landscape defiantly. Holding the colors of the deep sea. Here so far from the warmth and waves.

Are we better to live our lives as sailors navigating in the wind
Or the seed gently accepting and landing where the wind will take her
Or do we strive to balance the two
Manning our own ship, but when the storm sends us off course, recovery may be found only in letting go.

~

~

I let go.
Toss the seeds to the wind and will see them only again when they have flowered.
Their sweet smell will draw me back.

last seasons remains
blushing
in the Early winter
as the young lover peeking from beneath
the comforter of freshly
fallen snow

~

~

I leave you then with this, this week, words of wisdom not my own, but those shared by the wise, wonderful, beautiful soul, Amy, of SoulDipper.  She who sees well before me what seems to take me so long:

~

So be it.

I am done.

And back to living.

~