“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”
― Jane Hirshfield

Another morning, waking late. Sweetly sleeping in. Rest, necessary; desirable. It is so late when I go out, Charlie and Suzi are impatient. And I have time to boot skate over the ice and find a pretty, gold-tipped feather on the bubbly frozen surface. It is a feather on glass. It is found treasure, fallen from sky, from the flight of a bird over trees. All around, in the window panes of the wetland ice, there are dreamy images taking shape. It’s a melting morning. Warmer, with sunshine. I have to go in after all, to attend to a family matter. And then I accomplish about one thing today: I finish writing the course description for an online course I’m teaching in March and I send it off to the organizers. Otherwise, I take a day of rest and relaxation and not cooking and not cleaning any more than necessary and I start working on a collage, which is exactly what I need. I set up my table by the fire and get out my paints and my glue and my completed collages from previous years and I begin a new one based on my woman who wears a full moon in her heart. The title is from a poem by Muriel Rukeyser, “Night Feeding.” So, it’s inspired by the moon and feeding the feminine energy. My fingers are covered in blues and whites and silvers. The new project, my New Year’s collage, has begun. Now I will work on it little by little until New Year’s Day when I shall see what it has become.

“Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”
― Jane Hirshfield