Winter welcomes,
beckons,
invites us to
pause
on the brittle brink of the year,
witness
the shimmer of the season,
listen
for undertones of time passing
on icy tiptoe,
breathe
the crisp air.
Drink all of it.
Deeply.
Deeply grateful.
– kh –
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the week – toys!
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Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
On the first day of Winter,
as I pull into my driveway after dark,
my headlights startle two gray-brown rabbits
who had been sitting there in the cold—
chatting? Listening? Sniffing the air?
One bolts to the right,
the other to the left,
their white tails bobbing.
They live somewhere in my yard, I think,
perhaps snuggled under an arch of berried bushes
or tucked near the trunk of a pine,
or nestled under a thatch of twigs.
How do they survive the cold, I wonder.
They don’t dig dens,
or so I’ve read,
for they might get trapped by a fox or coyote.
They, too, roam our neighborhood—
the wild living among us.
Then again, as I watch the white-rumped rabbits
bounding into the darkness,
I realize that, actually,
it is we
who live
among them.
Happy Winter, wild ones.
-kh-
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
The house is empty,
my sister texted.
The house where we grew up,
where my mom decorated
for every holiday on the calendar,
where my dad, without warning,
would break out in a random song
from his vast repertoire—
Gilbert and Sullivan, Carmen, crooner tunes,
love songs for mom even after she died.
On his own last day, from their bed in that house,
he warbled a couple of bars
of “Molly Malone”
and I finished the line,
“alive alive-oh.”
That house is empty now.
Then again,
it’s not.
Every room holds memories.
Every door and window,
every wall,
the fireplace, the kitchen, the back porch.
The memories don’t die.
The beauty doesn’t die.
The grace and generosity don’t die.
In Daddy’s last days,
when someone would visit,
he would say, “We had a good run, didn’t we?”
Yes, Daddy, we did.
We had a good run in that house, and
oh God, how do I ever repay all the good?
The answer arrives
before I finish the question:
Embody that goodness.
Match it.
Become it.
Give it to your children and their children.
Share it with everyone you meet.
Breathe it out to the world.
For this love,
this joy,
this peace
is forever and for all.
This house will never be empty.
-kh-
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
This morning my hydrangea,
bedraggled and brown,
decided Spring has arrived.
Each spindly stem,
lined with loose withered leaves,
has become a spindly candle
topped with a tiny flame of
spring-green leaves.
I shake my head. It’s December.
Doesn’t Nature know better than to
leaf out
when Winter is just days away?
Nature whispers, Enjoy my candles,
my hope,
resilience,
renewal,
reawakening,
untethered to season.
Nature is budding
just for the joy of it.
Yesterday, someone asked me,
How old are you?
Seventy-one, I told him.
Really—he said—I wouldn’t have guessed.
Really.
Yes, really.
But I, like my hydrangea,
have decided that Spring has come.
–kh–
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
In this busy season and unbalanced world, a Celtic blessing of peace for you:
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.