Frost heaves

A sure sign of spring in these parts (uh, ignore the snow).

crescent moon!

Leaving the Zen Center after a long day on Saturday evening, waxing crescent moon shining in the south.

I remembered that same crescent moon from January.

It seems so long ago and far away. I just noticed this, the shape of the moon is the same in both photos, but the positioning is different. Google says that the moon's orbit is along the equator. In the southern hemisphere, people see the crescent moon "upside down" so the side that is shining seems the opposite from the northern hemisphere. In the northern hemisphere, the first quarter looks like a growing D, and in the southern hemisphere it looks like a C. In the last quarter the moon looks like a C in the northern hemisphere, and a D in the southern hemisphere. In the northern hemisphere, the sunlit part of the moon moves from right to left, in the southern hemisphere it moves from left to right. I didn't know any of that!

Paying attention

After bringing another load of wood into the kitchen last night, I took a look at the weather forecast. They were calling for freezing rain, up to a third of an inch in our area. It has been a very wet winter. The sump pump seems to run almost continuously. The sump pump is important because if we were to get a lot of water in the basement, it could ruin the furnace.
I started thinking. If we get a lot of ice as forecast, we could lose power. If we lose power the sump pump will quit. We have a generator for that purpose, but it's in the garage where the garage door operates electronically. If the power goes out, it will be difficult to get to the generator.
So I backed the car out of the garage, and  backed out the generator as well. It had started raining so I covered the generator with a tarp which I held down with four pieces of wood I pulled off the aforementioned stack of wood in the kitchen. Then I rounded up extension cords in order to connect the generator to the sump pump in the basement. As I was doing this, I thought that maybe all this work would act as sort of a good luck talisman to protect us from the freezing rain that was in the forecast.
Sure enough, the rain stopped. When I got up in the middle of the night to fill up the wood stove, I looked outside and there wasn't any rain and there wasn't any ice. We had dodged a bullet-this time.
Living in the country in Vermont is wonderful, but it isn't easy, especially in the winter. Paying attention to the elements isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. Paying attention, an important aspect of life here on the other side of the creek, and as a zen student.
Driving back from the morning's meditation, 32 degrees, and wind from the south.

flowing

The deepest words
of the wise man teach us
the same as the whistle of the wind when it blows
or the sound of the water when it is flowing.

Antonio Machado
Zen page a day calendar

different world

Temperature is 40 degrees this morning. Yesterday was sunny with a high of 51. It was a different world. Water running in the lane and cutting small rivulets in the ice. Sound of water in the road as cars pass by.
Allyn has said that 50 degrees in the fall feels cold, but 50 in the spring feels so warm. People, including me, had their windows rolled down, sound of music from cars passing by. Nathan Hewitt has put out a brand new sap collection bucket on the other end of our property, a sure sign of spring. We've lived here long enough, however, to know it's still a long ways away. Wind is supposed to turn out of the north this afternoon, low temperature tonight is supposed to be around 15.

Groundhog Day

It's also Candlemas Day. Half your wood and half your hay should still be left by Candlemas Day. How are you doing on your wood supply? I need more, and I'm going to get some today.

Nothing that is not there

Driving in to Rutland this morning. Temperature gauge on the car read -8 degrees. I am a long ways from Brazil.

The waning moon was rising in the south. On either side were the planets Venus and Jupiter. Stunning, cold but stunning.

Yesterday was very cold, but if you could set that aside, it was a beautiful day. Allyn went skiing in the back. When she got back she was gushing about the blue sky. "It was the same color blue as my skis!"

Later in the day I was driving through Chittenden on the way to Pittsford. Came over a hill, and there it was. January in Vermont in all its splendor.

This blog has taught me a lot over the years. One of those lessons is that I often see the natural world through the prism of self. When I can let that go, the world opens itself up to me in the most amazing way.

The Snow Man

By Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And to have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow

And, nothing himself beholds

Nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.