Winter Solstice

 

We are having an unusually warm weekend here in SW Utah leading up to the Winter Solstice which will occur early on Monday morning.  For this most important event, I always had a pot luck and shamanic fire ceremony at my home in Colorado.  As I write this, I am remembering one particularly cold Solstice where it was 13° when we went out back for the ceremony, and it was 11° by the time we finished.  In spite of that, I stayed outside an additional half hour after everyone left to enjoy the crisp, clear evening and the rising moon lighting up the snowy scene.  No such luck this year!  I will be doing a balmy bowl burning tomorrow night in my yard. 

So take this opportunity to be grateful for all of the blessings you experienced this past year.  Remember that even life’s difficulties can be a blessing if you look for the silver lining.  It is always there!  Sunday or Monday would be good days for contemplation and recapitulation.  Plant your seeds of intent during this darkest time of the year so they will sprout and grow.   You are in charge of your life. 

In the mean time, I send great gratitude and blessings to each of you reading this.  I am finishing up my 8^th year of writing this blog, and all of you have been an energetic part of it all along! 

Below are photos from today’s hike down near St George with the Rusty Iron Trekkers, a local Cedar City group.  We hiked the Yellow Knolls Trail.  Enjoy!  

After climbing through an area of volcanic boulders, we dropped down into a shallow valley and were greeted by a series of checker-boarded sandstone hills.  We lingered there a while as the sight was mesmerizing.  I have no explanation for the geometric shapes that we saw.

On the other side of the valley we saw a different style of checker-boarding in the sandstone hills.  A later volcanic eruption had spilled the lava rocks over the sandstone creating quite a contrast.

Utah agave, a desert plant.

On the road back to the trail head, we saw a huge lava flow with mountains in the background.