One of my techniques for dealing with short days and excessive indoor time is setting bonfires. I had hoped to do one tonight to celebrate the turning point from shorter days to longer ones. Tonight is wet, but fortunately Zoe and I spontaneously decided to light the fire last night when it was warm and still. I was the last one sitting by the fire, musing and studying the subtle shift from the flat, dark tree line to the color tinged darkness of the night sky while listening to the geese landing on the pond.
"If we didn't remember winter in spring, it wouldn't be as lovely; if we didn't think of spring in winter, or search winter to find some new emotion of its own to make up for the absent ones, half of the keyboard of life would be missing. We would be playing life with no flats or sharps, on a piano with no black keys."
--Adam Gopnick, from Winter: Five Windows on the Season, p. 179.
"If we didn't remember winter in spring, it wouldn't be as lovely; if we didn't think of spring in winter, or search winter to find some new emotion of its own to make up for the absent ones, half of the keyboard of life would be missing. We would be playing life with no flats or sharps, on a piano with no black keys."--Adam Gopnick, from Winter: Five Windows on the Season, p. 179.
The quiet peaceful thoughts that you post each solstice reminds me of the following Chinese classic poem #11 from Tao Teh Ching...道德經
"Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful."
Source: Tao Teh Ching - The Way, written around the 6th century BC by the sage Lao Tzu or Laozi (Old Master)
My favorite. Catherine, this is an outrageously beautiful bowl, and a lovely photo with the orange, too. I haven't been much of a communicator, but thanks for these series. I really enjoy them.