211231 a walk on the last day - mostly pictures, for Indre

 Dec. 31

" - covid-19 is out there and we need to continue with the sticks and stones of masks and isolation to keep it at bay. " mumma yaga, 201231 A year ago...  **

This is the upper pond, running, though it's shallow.

There are only a few hours left. I listen to a new year's eve playlist from 2019. "It's been so long you've been wanting a cabin and a back-woods trail" *

I have been grateful this week. It has filled my heart and mind. How have I come to this place? It is a magic beyond believing, just as the magic is that seems to blaze on the hills, as if it might catch fire. 

Today it is above zero and everything is melting. Great avalanches fall from the roof with a cloudy thump, but most of the water evaporates directly into a mist that rises along the ridges, like smoke. 

 

Up the camp road where beech leaves wait for the later winds.

Blackie came out to see me as I neared his house.

I walked across from the camp road to climb up through the brambles.

Blackie got there ahead of me.

The trees that border on the meadow stretch out their arms to catch the sun, and the snow. This great white pine is the dominant tree on the meadow. 

Green appears wherever the snow has retreated. 

Even this tiny leaf! Did it just grow yesterday or is it just uncovered, waiting since November.

The cow pond frozen, still. It has a little almost-island, which in summer is all stones and moss held together by the tree-roots and reeds. 

Blackie again. 

It has been a blurry, crazy year. Make that two crazy years. A path through the brambles. The brambles parted, though they were daunting from a distance, as each step, taken one at a time, brought me to a new opening. That's what life feels like just now. Brambles. But there is a way through, though we can't see it. The path will reveal itself as we walk. 

mumma yaga

* Ferron, Ain't Life a Brook, 1981

** https://mummayaga.blogspot.com/2020/12/201231-old-year-new-year-and-fig-news.html