Holiday Hush

All right, I confess--I tend to get a bit overwhelmed by the holiday season. As beautiful as the month of December is, all the purchasing of presents & wanting to make others feel happy & dearly loved can sometimes leave me bedraggled. I mean, does it really matter if my gravy's lumpy or I don't tie ribbons particularly well? Probably not! Like most of you, what matters most to me is that my family & friends are healthy & happy. So this year, I had a radical thought: what if the best gift I could give to others is ME? A sincere heart & joyful spirit who surrounds others with peace & kindness? Who loves others for their authentic selves--not for what they can do for me or provide under a Christmas tree? Yet to do that, I realized I needed to first find that peace & authenticity within myself. So rather than running around like crazy trying to make everything "perfect" this holiday season (& God knows, I'm guilty of that in years past!), I decided to take time out to truly appreciate the simple joys of December & to allow a hush to settle into my bones.  

For me, this means stopping long enough on a ski slope in Colorado recently to notice how the clouds look like Angels over the mountain tops. When I lifted my eyes, honestly, I could almost hear them singing! And I wondered if this wasn't just mental fancy on my part--if there really IS something in the universe that rejoices when we take time out to notice the beauty & wonder all around us.  

And a few evenings ago, while I was out jogging during a light snowfall, at one point, I simply had to stop, clutch at my heart, and gasp. Why? Because as the snow filtered through the sky, the setting sun shone through the spiraling flakes, making each one flicker gold. The sight was so heart-stoppingly beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. Even though I tried to capture it here (rather badly) on film, nature's poetry still left its mark on my soul in the form of a deep peace. And that silence, that sacred hush, is the true gift that I think December can bring. Within its quiet chill are moments that allow us to pause & appreciate something I can't even quite articulate--but that I believe has something to do with the eternal inside the temporal. A beauty that is at once fleeting & yet so piercing that it can endure in our hearts for all time. 

If we can relax long enough to feel that "sacred hush" during the holiday season, and let it replenish our souls, then we actually have more to offer other people! We have the gift of ourselves that can truly love & cherish those around us.  So as you make your way through this happy, hectic, harried, & hustle & bustle month, I hope you can also give yourself the opportunity to take long walks, to gaze at the sky, to allow snowflakes to fall on your tongue or notice shapes in the ice & patterns in the snow. In other words, during the midst of the holiday rush, don't forget the hush. Because long after the lights come down & the decorative trees have been turned into kindle, it may well be that these quiet moments are what you remember most.

Like the sweet message from a precious child left for you in the snow . . . 

(Photo credit note: All images on my blog are either my own or were gleaned from pictures in the public domains of popular social networks like tumblr, facebook or pinterest. If you own the copyright to any of these images & do NOT want them used publicly, please contact me & I will take them down immediately! : )

Autumn Wonders

The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "Life starts over again when it gets crisp in the fall." And I couldn't agree more. There's just something magical about the cool air & first frosts that make you want to drive down a forgotten country lane to the nearest pumpkin patch & take time to see old friends along the way. Perhaps it's the vibrant colors that inspire us to feel more alive, or maybe it's that nippiness in the air that makes us want to huddle around a bonfire & catch up with our nearest & dearest. Whatever the spell is that Autumn so faithfully casts, one thing is certain: it's a season filled with wonder & enchantment.

Each year, I can't wait for the grove of aspens along my jogging trail to turn gold, their leaves shimmering like bright coins. And nothing spells bliss for me quite like the feeling of those delicate leaves falling all around me in a colorful confetti when the wind begins to rise. I often see the tracks in the dirt of many wild animals this time of year, such as mountain lions, deer, elk & turkey, because this is the season when the wildlife are on the move, getting in their last foraging before settling down for winter.

I also love to take wilderness hikes with my family, in awe of the checkerboard pattern of brilliant reds & oranges & yellows that lay over the mountains. This was a particularly wet year for us in Colorado, and the aspen trees have responded to the bounty with an explosion of color that's a feast for the eyes.
 

It's as though God took a paintbrush and swirled every autumnal hue possible on the hillsides in a beautiful menagerie that's enough to take your breath away.

The vistas this year are so striking that at one point during our weekend hike, my 8-year-old son paused and tugged at my shirt . "Mom," he said softly, "are we in Heaven?" I fell silent for a moment, simply allowing myself to feel the same wonderment he did. And after taking a deep breath, I replied, "Yes, I think we are."

I loved my son's smug satisfaction afterwards—as if he'd discovered Shangri La in the quiet beauty of nature & couldn't wait to show me. And to be honest, I think he did—and I've tucked that memory in my heart & given a quiet thanks to Autumn for enabling us to experience it.

If you're at all like me, you can't wait to start decorating with fall colors the minute the first day of Autumn comes & you love to collect pumpkins to carve into fun faces for Halloween. But I hope in the hustle & bustle of this lovely season that leads us up to (gasp) Thanksgiving, you'll take a moment to cherish all the quiet wonders that Autumn brings. And maybe, you'll discover that its magical silence fills your heart with a special kind of gold...

P.S. If you're looking for an enchanting novel that takes place during Autumn & Halloween,

check out my paranormal romance TWIXT, available now on Amazon & Kindle

 (Photo credit note: All images on my blog are either my own or were gleaned from pictures in the public domains of popular social networks like facebook or pinterest. If you own the copyright to any of these images & do NOT want them used publicly, please contact me & I will take them down immediately! : )