“There is strong shadow where there is much light.” 
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen

 snow

sand

"Sometimes I go about pitying myself

And all the while I am being carried across the sky

By beautiful clouds."

Ojibway Indian saying

I love to visit the edges of things where worlds meet and merge

from Katherine Muth in Maryland

"I Rise"

I rise, as the morning of my day has also done.
Light seeps through the window shade, no sun,
that I have seen as of yet,

but the coming of rose before it, in anticipation.

Song of Spring's beginning came forth days ago,
early is it not?    But then, Mother Nature has been rather mysterious lately
in her weather pattern.   What have we done to Her.

I rise to a crisp, cool morning.
Birds greet the day, trees budding in a wake
that should not be as of yet.
What is to become of the months of Spring we knew from yesterday.
The calender will have to change its celebration dates.

And we will either have to move faster, to keep up with what we've created
or start re-creating our future in hopes that it is still there.

I rise, as the morning of my day has also done....WHEW!!

black elk, Lakota

Grandfather, Great Mysterious One, 

You have been always and before you nothing has been. 

There is nothing to pray to but you.  The star nations all over the heavens are yours, and yours are the grasses of the earth.   

You are older than all need, older than all pain and prayer.

Day in, day out, you are the life of things.

 Grandfather, all over the world the faces of living ones are alike. In tenderness have they come up out of the ground. 

Look upon your children, with children in their arms, 

that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.

Teach me to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that live.  Give me the strength to understand and the eyes to see. 

Help me, for without you I am nothing.

~

this is the prayer that named our land.  

We tried for years to find the name.  It would not come and then one day it was there~ 

face the winds

This may no longer be a farm but the signs of farming still remain.  

messy icy day to start
now all the ice and snow
is melting off.

In the white of winter I cherish color