Imbolc                                                            Waning Bridgit Moon

The snow has well begun and the winds howl outside, evidence that the Holly King has not yet been defeated by the Hawthorn Giant.  Even so, the snows of this time of year do not last long, even when they come in depth.  The sun vaults higher and higher in the sky each day, already 11 degrees higher at 33 than it was on January 1st at 22.  This elevation concentrates the sun’s rays, warming the days faster and faster until finally the Holly King will retire to his growing season abode far away in the ice of the northern regions.  I don’t know what he does there, but when he returns after the crops have been harvested and the land left fallow, he will be rested and ready to reassert his dominion.  Today he shows that his reign has not yet ended for this year.

Translating Ovid has been slow, as it always is, looking up individual words in the Latin dictionary, investigating verb forms and the declensions of nouns and adjectives.  The trickiest part, for me anyhow, remains holding the various words and their possible conjugated and declined meanings in my mind, assembling and reassembling them until, like the keystone into the arch, the sentence or phrase hangs together.

I like being in my lower floor study, half below ground, windows opening at ground level show the wind and the snow.  In here I have created a library set up for my needs:  art history references, philosophical texts, books on the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Sierra Club and environmental politics, travel guides from Greece, Cambodia, Turkey, Rome, Great Britain, Cambodia and Thailand among others,  texts, little read, on neuro and cognitive science.  Files for objects at the MIA, old presentations, short stories, novels and research material on the Great Wheel, the ancient Celts.

This is a peaceful place where concentration comes easily and hours can pass without leaving.  I suppose it’s also a meditation room.  Now the snow and the work of the morning have me leaning toward a nap.  Kate’s at work this Sunday, so I’ll sleep alone.  Unusual these days.