Snow is soft

…fresh, just fallen, inches deep and fluffy.

But not the hoar. Frost…and from the distance it can deceive.

Snow is soft. Frost is hard. Tell me again the difference between black and white?

Has the hoar frost visited thee and not me?

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A little joy…

…goes a long way. Especially this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Northern Hemisphere?

After the joy of the first fluffy snows, I find a certain, almost enbalming, dreariness in gardens before any sign of snow drops or aconites. Everything is gray and dank.

That was yesterday, after my physio at the hospital, as I walked home. Cheery did not enter my thoughts. Wind was cold. I zipped my coat up higher to protect my throat. Everything was wet. Melting piles of snow everywhere. All plants had suffered under the burdens of ice, slush and snow.

Unexpected discovery. Don’t give up hope. And even a little bit of fragrance.

They call it witch hazel. There are a bunch of them around the world in the Genus Hamamelis. Got its common name from its use by water witchers. Lots of medicinal uses.

From first sight, it sparked hope in me.

Forests, Dreams and Fairytales

Have you ever been where black forests white, only to feel winter pushing at the edge, unleashing colored dreams?

These are the forests of fairytales. Forests, where blacks and whites dissolve…into the always gray, always shady dreams…or do they?

Color or gray, dreams invariably have misty, shapeshifting edges where certainty and uncertainty jostle. And the fairytales? Were they once dreams, or…?