In the midst of this Winter Obscura, I give you a jolt of color.

I’m also checking in with you to see how you are doing.

These aren’t easy times, so check in with yourself from time to time.

Do a body analysis – how do you physically feel?

Do a mental analysis – where is your head at?

Do an emotional analysis – how is your soul doing?

Give yourself pause.

Give yourself grace.

Give yourself forgiveness.

And when you’re done, when you’ve re-aligned yourself and acknowledged where you are, and where you might want to be, get back in the game. Get back to your life. Get back to your family and friends.

Then get your ass back here for more pink-caped zaniness.

The sun has started staying out until I get home from work on office days. A good sign. A sign of progress, seemingly slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

‘Nonetheless’ – a somewhat strange term/word, and I wonder if I’m even using it correctly anymore. It’s one of those terms we sort of assume we know, but never really delve into what it truly means. I don’t feel like googling anything today. Nonetheless…

My silhouette stares ahead of me – I view it from behind and the sun is behind me – or am I viewing it from the front and my face is literally a blank space? Is this a super-villain or some tragically-masked anti-hero? Every few months I find my silhouette, and it’s often in the winter, usually late winter, when tree limbs are still bare and sun enters the house unobstructed. Sun not blunted by summer foliage – how bizarre to find a clearer version of the sun in this Winter Obscura.

The blank face of a ghoul, some demon exposing itself through shadow, the way some things only appear in peripheral view. Ghosts or visual spiders – or did I make all of that up? Silhouettes tell multitudes of slippery stories in hushed whispers, in whispered prayers.

Mine was silent today.

I filled in the blanks.

In the words of the wise Rose Nylund, “What’s Irish and stays out all night?”

“Patio furniture!”

Here’s a look at our snowy patio furniture after fifteen inches of snow fell on us starting Sunday. It’s still falling out there as of this writing, so there may be a bit more by the time this gets posted.

All in a day.

All in a January.

And all on the ‘The Golden Girls‘.

According to folklore, and depending on whether the reader readily believes any of it, the smoke from a Palo Santo stick is said to smell especially acrid to those who have the most to cleanse. When I first started using Palo Santo, I found the scent of the smoke challenging, but not disagreeable. Over the years it’s wavered, but mostly I enjoy it now.

Last night there was a sourness in the smoke of the new batch I lit. As much for the newness, as for what has been weighing on the mind of late, I’m afraid. To offset the world, I find it best to up my meditation time. Gradually, just a few extra minutes a day, until we make it out of the winter wilderness.

The Palo Santo always smells sweeter in the spring.

The soul feels better then too.

Light has been changing.

Days grow a little longer, one by one.

Sometimes there is color in the sky.

Sometimes there is color in the sun.

Sometimes it bleeds gray, drained of hue, drained of shade.

It’s hard to find much hope when we’re still in January.

Still, I follow the light. It shifts, it slides, it changes ever-so-slightly.

When the sky begins getting that Maxwell Parish glow, and the clouds look painted when the sun hits them in the afternoon, I know spring is on the way. Maybe not arriving tomorrow, maybe not next month, but not long thereafter.

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

There isn’t much more to say about the past week in this country – a country I no longer recognize, as much as I am unsurprised by where we are. Most of these silly posts were programmed in advance of recent days, but there are a few that address it because our silence is our complicity. People may not like political posts, but when politics become a question of morality, it is our obligation to speak up. Now, a look back at the previous week, when just a few days ago things felt only slightly less awful…

Backlit and blurred – a time before an image… I do not remember it.

Holy mackerel!

Hitting all the red lights.

Pre-populating these winter thrills.

Sounds of the seasons.

Do you know the muffin man?

Mind your busy-ness.

Pie of humility.

Longing for these underwear-clad days.

Caught in the knit.

The law of the cellular land.

As the rolls rise.

The sanctity of ritual.

Locating the sliver of extra light.

A wintry silver lining.

A post of pause upon the murder of yet another American citizen by ICE.

Hey MAGA, didn’t many of you vote for Trump to protect your 2nd Amendment rights? Well, the government just shot and killed a man for legally carrying. They took his gun, THEN they shot him, point blank, multiple times. It’s on video and we can clearly see what happened. They are treading on YOU.

Two days before that murder, these seven House Democrats voted to continue funding ICE. I fear many more FAFO moments are in store for our struggling country.