Snow falls softly but steadily, piles up in drifts and deep carpets, changing the landscape. Our small pine tree that Bob draped with white bee lights before the holidays looks magical with the lights gleaming through the pine’s cloak of snow.

Because we live in the country and have a BIG backyard, when it snows, we have a lot of areas to clear–sidewalks, driveway, mailbox, steps, and paths to bird feeders and compost bin. Fortunately, Bob is able to use a snowblower for most of the clearing. If one of the boys is visiting, they’ll shovel steps and areas the machine can’t get to. If not, I get out there to help.

When our collie mix, Duncan, was alive, several of the paths that Bob cleared were for Duncan, who needed numerous paths to his woodsy latrine.

Duncan in the snow

Often, Duncan tried to Read More→

While the United States’ Thanksgiving didn’t become an official holiday until Lincoln declared it such in 1863, the idea of being grateful and giving thanks as a community goes back to the early settlers of our country and that several days of feasting by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in 1621.

The occasion for the feasting was to celebrate the community’s survival through the winter of their arrival, the mud and planting of spring, the tending of the crops through summer, and finally, the reward of the harvest.

In addition to the lessons of hard work and gratefulness that the Pilgrims teach us, there are other lessons to be learned as well, at least three of which can apply to our creativity: Read More→

Before there was Halloween, there was Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”), a Celtic holiday celebrating the new year. Samhain is the second oldest unbroken holiday in the European World, approximately 6,000 years old.

This ancient holiday marked the changing of the seasons and was a time to honor the ancestors and to communicate with their spirits. This holiday, celebrated when the Sun is at 15° of Scorpio, is when the veils between the world of the living and the world of the spirits are at their thinnest.

Which makes Samhain a great time for divination, for crossing the barriers of time and space with the help of those spirits. In fact, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol really should have been Read More→

Autumn…makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future—that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go—to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness. ~Bonaro W. Overstreet

It is deep autumn here in the Northeast. Most of the trees, except the oaks, have lost their leaves. Suddenly, the woods or forest that seemed deeply mysterious and impenetrable is now revealed.

Autumn Woods of Creativity

In the summer, in its cloak of green leaves and vestments of undergrowth, the forest convinces us that wolf, bear and cougar hide waiting. Stepping within means risking getting lost and never finding one’s way out again.

But in the autumn, one can see the bones of the forest, Read More→