There’s not much snow, and that’s just fine with me. New Mexico is drying up, however. Big dirt sucking up the wet, rocks and mountains hungry for whatever moisture falls. They say that all these trees will die in just a couple generations. No one can believe that, though; didn’t we just track in a ton of mud?
The Solstice marks the New Year, not January 1st! Not some arbitrary, chopped-up fakery decided on by clerics and an emperor back when people thought that frogs sprang up from rain… This moment, this point, when the tilted axis of the Earth gradually brings more light, not less, to the thin skin on the top side of the planet, and most of us wake up again. New life, new hope, new plans, new dreams.
I’ve now outlasted all but one of my parents’ generation, my Uncle Buddy on my mother’s side. They started earlier, of course, so that comparison lacks heft. It’s just a way of noting where I am, and I am ready for a change. In that vein, I’ll share this with you—maybe it applies to everyone?—but I feel something big approaching very soon. Something positive and good. It’s like a warm spot in my mind and even has a date: sometime near the second half of January. Maybe we will find a home. Maybe I will “see” another book, be carried down the river in a happy flood. It feels like sunshine at the very least, and that would be enough. Dissolving, melting, letting go, and moving on.
Whatever this thing is has legs, though, so all of you take note. And take some time today to feel just when the solar shift occurs. At this location, that was 20 minutes ago (10:11 a.m. MST). The mood just now is definitely brighter, if not the cloudy sky.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
I linked to this from my Facebook page because of the second paragraph.
I like that a lot.
Excellent! It’s really true, in any case.
John, another stunner, thank you! I feel this slippery sense of things coming better and bigger with a sprinkle of adventure, too. It can’t out run me either, this time. It took me several years in New Mexico winters to realize that December is a point of return, not just another month of dark and cold. Little creatures of the light, turning our heads to sunbeams…
“this slippery sense of things coming better and bigger with a sprinkle of adventure..”
That’s it, all right. And I never felt quite that way before. In my case, it might have to do with coming to terms with my past (as in the preceding post). But definitely a sense of opportunity.
The longest night, the shortest day and at my latitude the hastening lightness occurs quite noticeably. Yes, I always sense a change at our celestial journey points and Winter always seems the strongest. I hope my Seasonal greetings card had arrived in your mailbox before now, John. May you have a wonderful 2014 my online friend.
Theo! Yes, it did, and it’s propped up on the table in a prominent position. Much appreciated, thank you. I’ve been enjoying your comics, too. Stay warm up there!
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