Winter's path to heaven . . .
Sunday, December 21, 2025. It's Sol's day … the Winter Solstice is upon us – the shortest day and longest night of the year and return of the light. The new season usered in at 9:03 a.m. Central Time. Moderate Easterlies bring a warming trend to TulseyTown this week. Today in the upper 50's. The week ahead featuring 70's and mostly clear skies.
Cultures around the world have celebrated the solstice since ancient times. From the Roman feast of Saturnalia to the pre-Christian festival of Norse jól or Juul observed in Scandinavia, our ancestors honored the first day of winter in many ways.
Yin and Yang form the basis of much of Asian philosophies. According to this school of wisdom, one cannot exist without the other. These two seemingly opposite forces are intimately connected and complementary. Lao Tsu said the two arise mutually and are inseperable. Yin, he said, is the “mother of the ten-thousand things,” while Yang is committed to the duality of naming. We need times of darkness, quiet, stillness, healing, and rest, as much as we need activity, noise, and light. The sight of darkness, the feeling of Winter's cold are gifts of Yin. The name “solstice” and its placement on the calendar written by Yang.
Our meditation practice pulls both ways. From one perspective, it is a discreet activity, something we do. From another perspective, one that tends to emerge more clearly with time, it seems less something we do and more something we are.
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:
I miss my husband's company –
he is so often in paradise.
Of course! the path to heaven
doesn't lie down in flat miles.
It's in the imagination
with which we perceive this world
and the gestures which
honor it.
– Mary Oliver, in House of Light, Beacon Press, 1990.
Chaotic wonder . . .
Saturday, December 20, 2025 . It's the Satyr's day … Windy Southerlies continue in TulseyTown with sun and low 60's. Winds shifting to Northerlies around Noon.
This past week feels like the final, chaotic days of a political era. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, posted for today.
The Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, the lifelong muse of poet W.B. Yeats, was born on this day in 1865 Surrey, England. Their relationship is one of those love stories for the ages.
Today is the birthdate of physicist David Bohm. Born in 1917, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the American-born British theoretical physicist developed a causal, nonlocal interpretation of quantum mechanics .
John Steinbeck born on this day in 1902, Salinas, California.
Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life premiered on this day in 1946. It's now a Christmas staple.
There is nothing more difficult yet more gratifying in our society than living with sincere, active, constructive hope for the human spirit. – Maria Popova
No regrets . . .
Friday, December 19, 2025
It's Freya's day . . . Windy Southerlies bring a mix of clouds and sun to TulseyTown during an afternoon near 60º.
When you begin to get a real glimpse egolessness, and can finally look up from your own suffering to see the suffering of others, it’s time to talk about compassion.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – Thomas Paine, December 19, 1776.
Thomas Paine and The American Crisis. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, 12.19.25
Our ordinary lives are given extraordinary significance when we accept that our lives are about something much larger. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Right and Radical Amazement, Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation.
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was published on this date in 1843.
Playwriter Jean Genet was born in 1910 Paris, France.
And It's the birthday of Edith Piaf. Considered by many to beFrance’s greatest singer, she was born in1915, Paris, France