This October Morning...

...was too lovely to keep me trapped in the dreary walls of my place of refuge.  I was NOT a prisoner, and freedom was inviting at me out to visit.  The crimsons, goldens, russets of the woods were drifting down softly around me, and crisp under my boots.  With the steady evergreens both clashing and and yet harmonizing, I was in a symphony of color set against azure and gray.  A canvas, and yet a score for the artist, the composer, laying down color, notes.  Colorful notes!

Crystal-golden tinkling twirls through warmish-cool breeze.  After sky breathes, maples were woodwinds and bells in a symphony of sound, color, scent, touch.  Sky-breath tastes like earth, maple, pine, dry pine and oak.  Sweet wine, I drink deeply of it, and I am warmed. 

Green-needles red pines crescendo as sky breathes, lifting and then lowering batons laden with needles and cones.  I have always enjoyed the bark of the red pine.  It is fun to peel off just a little of the orangy-gray layers like cleaving mica, not too much that I damage the tree, but just enough to see what is underneath.  What is underneath is more of the same cork-bark in abstract shapes like jig-saw puzzle pieces. 

As the crescendo RISES, falls, first LONG and LOUD, then soft...and almost silent, I look down.  A crimson/day-glow-red maple leaf among brown oak leaves tells me to pick up red.  I obey.  It was most lovely in a gaudy sort of way, like a princess among the commoners.  I feel compelled to drop the princess so she may be with her subjects where she belongs, so I do.

The canvas becomes blue, harshly dark and gray, now shifting this temporary palette of divine earth things.  All of it reminds me that change is NOT an option, but with the full assurance that once again the Creator of seasons and substance, Sustainer and Giver of life will not waste it, but keep the hope of another day like this, and BETTER days, even than this one, will be in the tomorrows ahead.

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter to the full day.  Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but I am assured of the hope of fresh, new, sparkling tomorrows ahead, and I am at rest.  This is the climax for now.  This October morning. 

And, now, suddenly I find myself in April! 

Great Balls Of...Lightning!

This is actually part two of the sugar snow blog, but since I was too tired to write more before, here goes.

Ahhh, a wonderful warm reprieve today complete with actual sunshine--I know, it's almost too much to comprehend after the oppressive low pressure blanket of yucky overcast gloom lately.  I don't think I'm the only one giddy with the spring "tease" again that we're having.  Today as I venture out on slushy roads, I find that everyone, it seems, is coming out of the woodwork.  We all smile at each other knowingly, as if we're co-survivors of yet another freak-of-nature incident, but thankful that it's over, and it could have been so much worse.  Only two days out from the Great Balls of Lightning...

I say "great" because A) I'm a science/nature geek, and 2) I'm easily amused by simple things.  I mean, Bill Nye is one of my heroes, sort of, and if I would have known him personally in high school, who knows how my destiny would have been forever altered...Anyway, Bill himself would tell you that there actually is such a thing as ball lightning, which is what I saw during this blizzard.  Apparently, this is a form of lightning that occurs when electrically charged particles fall to the ground, roll until they reach a solid object, then discharge with an explosive, but relatively non-dangerous flash of light.  My own dear grandmother told me long ago of such lightning rolling through her house through one window and out the other, and I have witnessed it myself maybe once before, but never in a snowstorm.  Yep, card-carrying science nerd here...

I had to go to my ancient encyclopedias (circa 1960's)--I know, geek again!--and verify that what I really witnessed was a scientifically valid event and not just a subliminal suggestion previously placed in my mind from my precious late grandmother.  Yes, and in the 1960's, though not fully understood, it was even documented with (black-and-white) photos.  Good enough for me!  Anybody else out there in the blogosphere witness ball lightning?  I'm considering forming a "meeting of the minds", a summit, of we privileged few who have witnessed the elusive wonder called (unimaginatively, I think, anyway) ball lightning, perhaps to give it a more sensationalistic name fitting such a wonder of the cosmos.  Okay, now you're thinking this is a dork gone to seed, for sure!  All right, settle down, everyone...it's probably not going to happen in my lifetime, but mark my words, someone will come along some day and give it a REALLY cool scientific name, not dumb old ball lightning.

So, now that you've been convinced that it really does exist (it does, HONEST!), I wonder how many folks reading this will actually go do a little research on their own?  I hope so!  God has made the simple things to confound the wise, and I'm convinced He actually delights in giving us even simple things like Great Balls Of Lightning to make us wonder what else in His creation we have yet to discover.  Never stop being curious, but along the way, don't forget to stop and thank the One who made it all possible.