Twenty Eleven



Happy New Year!



It is New Years day.  Only a week ago I was in the kitchen getting Christmas dinner ready for the McDonald clan.  The house was lit with twinkling lights, there were stockings filled with unusual gifts, and presents under the tree.  There was six inches of snow on the ground and it was very cold and had been most of the December.

Today, only seven days later, it is very warm, temperatures went from the teens and twenties to the fifties.  Snow is totally gone and this New Years Day, it is raining.  Yesterday I heard a song sparrow sing as if it were spring.  I might have been fooled if it weren't for the Christmas tree still standing in the bay window.  I went outside, hoping to feel warmth from the sunshine, the earth was muddy and soft, I forgot and found myself looking for that first sprout of green beneath a leaf.  Then I remembered that it is the last day of December.  There is no spring hiding under that leaf, at least nothing visible to my eyes.



Loved this, looks like a
Medicine Wheel.....



Today is a new year, 2011.  I feel the rain is helping to wash away the last of 2010.  A cleansing to start the new year fresh.  Let go of the past, start a new year with new goals.  Be free of hurt and find your PEACE within.  Wash away unwanted feelings, find and share the LOVE.  Allow the rain to wash and cleanse anything that has been weighting you down. 

I am grateful for the rain, not only is it cleansing all that it touches, it nourishes a somewhat parched earth after our summer drought.  It is refilling our little streams allowing the water life to thrive.  The birds gather at a puddle and take a winter bath, the trees quietly drink the moisture for next summers shade.  It is good to start the new year with this quiet rain.  We are blessed this day.  Happy New Year, it's Twenty Eleven.