New Year Thoughts

On the other side of Solstice and Christmas, I can sit at my red-bedecked kitchen table to let my mind wander. I watch a raven swoop over the garden, calling to its partner, maybe reporting I’ve not left the daily food offering yet.

I’m mostly feeling grateful this morning. I appreciate I’ve enough wood for the fire, the pump hasn’t frozen, and my solar-charged batteries are still working (even if they are five years old). Among many other things, the generator still starts with the hand pull. I have plenty of food, and I finally have the refrigerator gasket problem glued with gorilla snot in place. Oh, and my phone works.

I’m grateful the yard is strewn only with small branches and tree limbs. If anything big came down, it must’ve happened in the forest areas away from the house and out-buildings.

I have to admit I’ve been the recipient of a kind of magic around this year’s holiday season year.

Did Santa Claus leave me surprise presents under the non-existent tree? Not one bit. Was I visited by the spirits of Christmas present, past, and future? Not as gaseous forms. Only in my thoughts.

In fact, no talking snowmen, magic princes, or oracle-like frogs crossed my threshold.

But there was magic.

During a brief sunburst between storms, every raindrop at the tips of every fir and pine needle sparkled in splendor. Whenever I needed to go for wood or tend to the generator, the rain stopped until I was done.

When I lost my purse on a shopping trip, it was returned to me. When I faced the make-up department in Wal-Mart, a sprightly, young woman happily shared her knowledge and skill in this art I’ve neglected for 30 years without judgment of me or a question of why I wanted to start painting my face now.

Surprise phone calls helped me over some rough spots. Invitations arrived when I needed to go out. Inspiration came when I had to solve a problem.

And in the quiet of the house, I felt myself move with our Earth as she turned on her axis and become part of all life as it shifted and changed through this season of slow growth and rebirth.