Cold, thick, slushey snow drips from the sky, from the trees, filling the hollows, soaking the ground. The saturated ground.
It has been a long cold winter.
A winter for the history books.
The frozen tundra and monstrous ice plowed mountains have gradually melted away, creating a spongey, wet, mudddy bog.
Which has presented an ongoing challenge for my New Year's resolution. To walk every day. Twice a day if I rock.
My course is the walking way around the lake, Terrace Lake upon which I live. Me and my people as well as a gaggle of neighbors who all share a sweet wandering path around the elevan acre lake in the suberbs of south KC.
A nice way to raise the heart rate, walk the dogs, tire out the grandchildren, clear the mind. Connect with Nature.
We have come to this. We make dates wtih Nature. So far we have drifted.
And with this winter weather my resolution has drifted at times; tested by high snow drifts, howling winds, icey paths, thick fog, and spongey bogs.
It has been a long cold winter. And it is not over yet. Not till the groundhog sings.
Unless, of course, one is reckoning by the Chinese calendar. Based upon the sun and moon cycles, the former divides the year into twenty four periods called "energy nodes". Each of these nodes, or periods has a name corresponding to the change in the weather; "Great Heat", "Small Cold", "Awakening of the Insects".
The energy node called ch'ing-ming, "Clear and Shinning", marks the Chinese New Year and the Spring festival, celebrating the arrival of spring. It falls 105 days after the winter soltice, on the first day of the first lunar month of the calendar. Falling this year on February 15, it marks the renewal of spring as well as the renewal of the hearth fire.
Hearth fire is right. "Grey and Sleeting" seems a more appropriate discription.
I guess it is a faith kinda thing.
From beneath this icey, soaked tundra, spring will emerge again. The yang energy will rise to fire lagging spirits, fanciful fairy gardens, happy gatherings and friendly frolickings with Nature. Naturally.
But for now I need my icey New Year's Resolve and dates with Nature to walk my way around that Lake. Hoping to soon hear the clear and shinning song of the groundhog.
