I love the silence of the first snowfall of the season. I love the feeling of snuggling down with a good book to read or a project for my hands. I love that we’re closing in on the shortest day of the year, the day when the first hints of spring and summer to come can be felt whispering on our skin. I love the brilliant blinding light of snow reflecting sunshine.

I love leaving the first footprints in a fresh blanket of snow. I love watching a black and white cat turn into a cavorting kitten dashing madly spewing snow about as he goes. I love the smell of laundry that comes in freeze dried off a winter clothes line. I love not being able to go anywhere, except on foot, until the roads are cleared.

I was talking with a squirrel a few days ago while she gathered the cones we’d raked into a pile by the roadside. She’d spent weeks throwing cones to the ground from the grand daddy fir tree that towers above the chicken coop. She wasn’t talkative; actually she didn’t want to be disturbed at all. She was busy caching her winter stores and her message was clearly about how close the snow was, and how cold it’s going to be.

I’m preparing a Winter Solstice Ceremony to celebrate with a group of sisters. I’ve intended to gather a group of women to sit in a sacred circle together since my vision quest time. Those intentions have come together with the means through building a meditative practice this year. As I’ve moved between physical preparations and the meditative preparations this last month I have been awed and humbled by this gift.

I’ve been visioning bubbles of lovelight with laughter kisses in their centers bursting over everyone’s heads…I trust you’re getting yours.