About a week ago, really.

It’s quite settled in now and has its eye on us. And at the very last, the old year shows us her hidden beauty.

And her new beauty.

Which is the old beauty…

…renewed.

It is a simple thing but the best thing we have. Nothing can be made out of it.

It is a vision through the body of the world into the body of the world. Making…

… just looks strange.

Robins know better.

Nothing can be made of it, except, well, look at the pattern of nerves in the rowan above, and then in the roses and snowberries below, weaving the years into one…

… and the brain stuff growing on the basalt, long past spring time …

…and in the lichen, deep in its summer.

It is the same pattern. That is simplicity: a pattern so complex it has no end and nowhere breaks with us. May it carry you deep into the year, with the strength…

… that is beauty. We are beautiful because the land is beautiful.

May it catch you and hold you tight…

… and may you answer well by lingering long and slow.

Blessings.