That time between Christmas and the New Year, y'all, I can't stand it. This year I embraced the can't-standing-ness of it as much as I could and found that it made it more tolerable.
The weather has been peculiar for New England. Normally by now we're staying at freezing and below with the occasional sub-zero day, but it's been creeping regularly towards 50 (10 if you're Celsius). And rain, drizzle, rain rain drizzle. I'm thankful for the moisture after the painfully dry summer we had, but the temperature is wildly unsettling.
It IS good walking weather, though, and the shifting air temperature gives the water beautiful freeze-unfreeze patterns. One of the ponds has collected frozen bubbles.
Omenwalking
Just before Solstice I was debating taking part in my good friend Hawk's Omenwalk practice. For 12 days leading up to the new year, or over the 12 days of Christmas, you collect an omen each day for the upcoming 12 months of the year. This seemed like an excellent way to get stuck in deeper with incorporating omens and augury into my personal practice as well as improve my relationship with year-ahead divination. I find myself getting too hung up on details and accuracy in ways that get me in my own way, and I was spinning hard on this one. Like, what if I did a stupid thing one day and collected a stupid omen? I contemplated the idea of collecting all my omens in a single walk but hadn't quite committed to a date yet.
On a longer walk last week I slipped down a knoll headed towards one of the less-used trails in Treefriend's Marsh, and found a shiny nickel sat on top of undisturbed leaves. It was obviously January.
I collected a conversation, bird formations, an airplane, a woodpecker, a very silly dead leaf. I spent an hour testing with my gut and my pendulum along a short stretch of trail, plodding along the edge of the hassocky meadow, finding that I was done once it got cold enough to put my coat on.
The Digest
In vortex-mode I was doing a lot more scrolling and staring at the ceiling and a lot less combing through photographs. Also a lot of napping. But I dipped a toe back in this week while I was getting my head screwed back in its socket. Here is the desert outside of Dubai; a Speckled Mousebird I photographed while trying to dissipate my stress at a Hyena-Leopard confrontation (!); and one of my faithful friends in Treefriend's Marsh in September.
I also snuck a few photographs I've already posted elsewhere into the archives of the blog, perhaps you would like a peek.
Until the Aquarius New Moon — watch out for that Mars and stay cozy, friends.
My latest photograph shared as of this writing is minor adjustments.
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