Reflection on a New Year

By January 1, solstice has passed,  and light, minute by minute, has begun to stretch the length of each day.  Still, the first month of the year, and the two that follow, can seem very long, and very dark.  Because my love for this season has ebbed over the last years, my new year's resolution is to stop periodically and look around me.  In this way, I hope to regain an awareness of winter's beauty.

It was in a moment of pausing on a recent walk in in Salisbury Township, my favorite park, that I noticed a pinecone shining in fallen leaves, its tiny scales as closed as my view of winter.  Carrying it home and placing it on my desk, I began a bit of research, which turned out to be wonderful project.  The cone, the Internet told me, had fallen from a Norway Spruce.  Further, the wood of this evergreen is used in making musical instruments like lutes, violins or guitars.  Acoustically, the wood has clear, bell-like qualities.  I had no idea, as I pulled my coat tighter while stepping through the leaves, that the tree I stopped beside could sing.

Additionally, the city of Oslo, in Norway, sends a spruce to New York, London, Edinburgh and Washington, D.C. mainly in gratitude for aid given during World War II.  With the news so dark all around, this pinecone is turning, right before my eyes, into a candle of light for courage and perseverance.  My research also turned up the haunting fact that pinecones open and close many times in their lifetime.  (I never thought I'd identify with a pinecone!)  In fact, its scales (petals) opened in the heat of the house.  Held upright now, it looks like a tree with foreshortened branches.  It reminds me that the mystery of life continues all around me, even when I am not aware of it.

I think I've cheered myself up about winter for a good month or so.  If you would like to pause and reflect on a beautiful aspect of the season, and send that reflection to Salisbury.Patch, please do.

within

winter silence

I can hear

the bell of my life

ring clearly

calling, naming, calling