A state of torpor

The days are growing longer
or does it just seem that way
with the endless frigid temperatures
trees done popping, now they're cracking
perhaps not alone are they...
Most small bird species simply fly away
from winter's harshness
while small birds like chickadees and nuthatches
do a balancing act every cold winter night
Chickadees self-induce a state of torpor
slowing down their metabolism
Yes, torpor is my current state
I've learned my lessons well...
lethargy
sluggishness
inertia
listlessness
languor, lassitude, laziness, idleness,
indolence, sloth, acedia,
somnolence, weariness, sleepiness
"the feeling of torpor lingered for weeks"
The white-footed mouse, like the hobbit
stays active all winter
but gets through cold spells by communal nesting
huddling together in tight burrows underground

The Hut at the Shire

We have a hut in the wood, not many know its whereabouts, with cherry trees which blossom nearby and in winter the fruit of the highbush cranberries red in the snow.  Two cedar door posts for support, and a lintel of oak.  The roof covered with earth grows squash in the summer.  A little hidden lowly hut which owns the path filled forest.

Trees of apples of great bounty; seemly crops of small-nutted branching green hazels growing in clusters like a fist. 

Excellent water gushing forth from hand pumped wells, a cup of water splendid to drink.  Tall deer, does, wild turkeys abound.  Foxes come to the wood before it, all is delightful. 

The songs of the many hued warblers, the carol of the thrush, pleasant and familiar about the hut.  A nimble singer, the combative brown wren from the hazel bow, woodpeckers with their pied hoods in vast host.

Fair white birds come, cranes,  swans, pelicans, the lakes and fields sing to them...the mellow plain, delightful and smooth. 

The voice of the wind against the branched woods, grey with cloud; cascades of the river, the trumpeting is lovely music.

Beautiful pines serenade us, they are not hired; I fare no worse at any time than do you.

Though you delight in your own enjoyments, greater than all wealth, for my part I am grateful for what is given to us through Mother Earth.

Without an hour of quarrel, without the noise of strife which disturbs much of the world, grateful to the Mother who gives every good to us in our hut.

(paraphrased from memories of an old Irish tale of centuries ago)

Is CBC1 now Radio Free America?

Perhaps we can only get truth and clarity from radio programs from outside Trump's America. Yes, it's come to this. CBC may become Radio Free America.  Take 54 minutes out of your day to really listen to this October piece, aired before Trump "won" the presidency. Re-aired tonight.
Radio Free America

It can happen here.

He promises to “make America a proud, rich land again,” rails against blacks, Jews, and Mexicans, and makes it a point of criticizing the press, whose editors he accuses of “plotting how they can put over their lies, and advance their own positions.”
No, this is not a description of 2016, and the candidate is not Donald Trump—although you can be excused for thinking so. This is, instead, a character named Buzz Windrip in Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, a cautionary tale about how fascism comes to America.

When Winter Comes To A Woman's Soul

"When winter comes to a woman’s soul, she withdraws into her inner self, her deepest spaces. She refuses all connection, refutes all arguments that she should engage in the world. She may say she is resting, but she is more than resting: She is creating a new universe within herself, examining and breaking old patterns, destroying what should not be revived, feeding in secret what needs to thrive.
Winter women are those who bring into the next cycle what should be saved. They are the deep conservators of knowledge and power. Not for nothing did ancient peoples honour the grandmother. In her calm deliberateness, she winters over our truth, she freezes out false-heartedness.
Look into her eyes, this winter woman. In their gray spaciousness you can see the future. Look out of your own winter eyes. You too can see the future."
~ Patricia Monaghan

Be cautious of your sources, lest you be swayed by propaganda. Find your own way home.

We get caught up in monikers and labels...I'm much more conservative than most conservatives, much more libertarian than most libertarians, much more progressive than most progressives and much more liberal than most liberals...how can that be? Well...it's like someone identifying as Christian. Do they mean evangelical christian, christian identity movement, liberation christians, christianity which has gay ministers, christianity which condemns same sex relationships as of satan, christianity which believes the earth is 6000 years old, or christians who believe in evolution. Through distortion...Mother Earth becomes Mary, the mother of Jesus who was born near the winter solstice...pro-paganism...pro-pagan-da...Ambiguous, distorted, easily twisted into any propagandist stand one wishes to take.
Be cautious of your sources, lest you be swayed by propaganda. Find your own way home.

Conservative me is smart not to want to destroy the earth, but conserve the natural and honor the Earth...Liberal me knows that we need social programs, especially in a nation as diverse as this...to pull people out of poverty, create livable, affordable, sustainable urban conditions...greening them as we go, public transportation, bike trails, decentralized schools walking distance, better neighborhood medical triage...taking the opposite track, destroying the Earth for short term gain, turning our backs on the plight of poverty and inner cities, further centralization of grids and medicine, more specialization is a recipe for disaster, civil unrest, neighbor against neighbor, factionalism, blurring of lines...