Tag Archives: celebration

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Solstice: #Tanka Tuesday

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Solstice

Winter dawns, heralded by dreary skies and the sun’s retreat. Wind-whipped rain blusters, casting free the remnants of autumn’s crinkled leaves. Woodland creatures burrow into the roots of things, latent, enduring, and twinkling colors gleam in frost-rimmed windows, a warm false-light to see us through the darkness. Oh, do not despair during these days of dying, for the magic of this wise world welcomes the first day of winter with the return of light.

mornings by moonglow

shadows hushed in shades of blue

twilit afternoons

winter’s darkness shrouds the day

while solstice promises spring

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This tanka prose is in response to Colleen’s #TankaTuesday challenge. A “tanka prose” is a piece of prose followed by a tanka with syllable count 5/7/5/7/7. For inspiration, she prompted us to write about any festival or tradition we celebrate during the month of December. Happy Solstice!

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Christmas in July

Another quick intermission in the muse posts.

I thought I’d share an idea for the holidays (which isn’t mine).

Missing Thanksgiving with kids and grandkids was a bummer, but the thought of missing Christmas is a heartbreaker. But who said we can’t simply postpone it?

For all those who are struggling with the decision about whether to get together with family and risk illness, or stay at home and pass the day twiddling your fingers in isolation, consider Christmas in July.

As the Grammy and instigator-in-chief in my family, I just set the date and booked a spot for a family gathering. In July.

We’re going to have a feast with turkey and cranberry sauce where we’ll pass around huge helpings of thankfulness. We’re going to string holiday lights around the fire pit and conduct a Secret Santa on the starlit deck. We might even decorate a tree in the forest!

Grampy and I will drop off presents this December, but the true gift of the holidays is time with our loved ones. It will happen. It will be special because we’ll all be in this together.

Stay safe and enjoy the holidays whenever you decide to celebrate them. ❤

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Ninny Rhino Celebration

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Back at the beginning of March, I kicked off a Mini-WriMo, which fondly become known as a Ninny Rhino. Everyone was invited to join in. We each were free to establish their own writing-related goals.

I had high hopes, but life got in the way. So after a week of not reaching my number, I lowered my goal by half. That’s how this works. Gentle goals and being kind to ourselves – a nudge to write without getting impaled.

If you responded to the slightest nudge, wrote one word more than you would have otherwise, organized your writing space, read an ignored article on marketing, sat for an extra hour of editing, etc., YOU WON the Ninny Rhino badge! (You’re free to download the above badge).

To celebrate, please share your accomplishment in the comments as well as a link to one of your favorite posts (any post and open to all writers and poets).  I encourage everyone who comments to visit a few other Ninny Rhino enthusiasts.

And if you want to do it again (or for the first time)… there’s always May. 🙂

Happy Writing!

 

 

 

 

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Falling Moon

falling-moon

In my fantasy world, the Falling Moon welcomes a world of pattering rains and burnished leaves fluttering in brisk winds. The wilderness twirls and tumbles and the forest floor blazes in a coverlet of color. The land softens and patchworks of umber and gold quilt the hillsides. It’s a time of frosted breath and morning ice, of warm fires and falling light.

The Falling Moon shines over the world on October 16th

Excerpt from Eye of Fire,  Dragon Soul Quartet (Book II)

That night the travelers celebrated their safe arrival with the village. Lamb sizzled on spits over two cookfires in Phelan’s trampled gardens, and the women of Taran Leigh served the season’s last greens, seeded bread, and tart pies sweetened with clover honey. The men uncorked jugs of dark ale and passed them around the gathering, making for a jovial evening.

Taran Leigh’s cooper carted in a drum fashioned from an old cask and settled his bulk near the cookfire’s light. He thumped a rhythm as steady as a heartbeat as Torin brandished his wooden flute. The pair of them played a tune for the village, for the food and ale, for the fire’s embrace, for the freedom and Belonging spilling from the sky like starlight. Ceridwen sang, and the villagers joined in as if their songs too would break free of their bodies and soar. Conall hugged Treasa to his side and pointed up. Earlin raised her eyes to the night. The moon hovered, as round and shimmering and close to a golden coin as any of them would ever need.