Darkest days and longest nights

Seemed that the night did not want to give up its hold this morning. Light slowly seeped into the grey sky and the day is quiet and still and definitely not bright. It is with great relief that I realize that we are done with the longest night and turn now into the sun. Even two minutes a day will be an improvement.

This winding down of the year is especially poignant and the summing up of the year's events will be momentous and joyful. This year, with Kai's arrival will be remembered as the year of his birth. Those dates are marked even long after we are gone. We are still celebrating Beethoven's birthday!

I am learning to embrace the rhythms of the seasons - not to struggle against the natural cycles and energies. This is a time of hibernation and sleep and my body knows that. At 4:30 when it is already dark, I am ready to close off my day and any efforts made to be active in the evening are challenging. I can barely stir from my warm bed in the morning. This all makes sense and somehow I have been unaware of the ebb and flow or else have insisted that it makes no difference. Nonsense!

And so I am drawn to summing up this week as the hustle and bustle of Christmas is upon us. I will take some time over these short days to consider what I want to celebrate about 2009 and what the first decade of this new millenium has meant to me. 2010 is a perfect opportunity to renew again - the beginning of a new 10 years that will have their own flavour as each new decade does.

I will continue to enjoy the baking and wrapping and preparation for the annual feast and gathering of the clan. I love the anticipation of stockings being unpacked with much laughter and fun and the presents being unwrapped and oohed and ahhed over. There will be much fuss made over our sweet baby and although he won't remember this first Christmas, we will!

Right now, a hummingbird is sipping sugar water from the feeder on my deck. I marvel over this resilient, brave little creature that defies the odds and logic and spends all winter here. Last week, in the snow, it seemed fantastic and amazing that a hummingbird would be flying outside my window yet there he was - symbol of all that is incredible and miraculous in the deep of winter!