I have always taken a quiet comfort in the changing of the seasons. Even in times of deep despair, there is hope in the certainty that the landscape, now slipping into its winter torpor, will one day reawaken. There is such meaning in the natural rhythms of these cycles: death and birth, sleep and wakefulness, and everything that occurs in between.
I can feel the ebbing of the earth’s heartbeat, the advancing chill that steals in like smoke. The lines of light through the pines are cooler now, and wavering. The shadows are longer, and the frost-coated branches glisten like fire opals.
Our neighbor on the corner turned ninety this week. She has decided that it is no longer “cost effective” to buy a new mattress. I applaud her intimate relationship with death, but my throat catches just the same. I do not understand the lesson of aging. Why things waste away. (Though, admittedly, I have pondered youth and vitality far less.) The mystery of transformation, one thing into another, surely this is where the answers lie.
© Ber Murphy Photography 2011 – All rights reserved.
Smallpeace 
Wow, very gorgeous photos. I love every single shot.
Hi, Bailey. Welcome to Smallpeace! Have to give photo credit where it’s due: most of those shots were taken by my uber-talented photog husband, Ber Murphy. I’ll pass along the nice compliment.
Frost covered window pane, whichever of you took it, truly magical. Not that the others are bad, just that it stands out for me.
And by golly, those branches DO look like fire opals!
Opals are my birthstone, T2T, aren’t I lucky?