I recently saw a patient brought here complete with stretcher, IV tubes and bags, attendant and family.  They sat by the cascading water surrounded by tropical plants, breathing in the sweet moist oxygen-filled air: resting, finding relief, feeling most human and almost normal, adding nature’s healing to the handiwork of the doctors, nurses, and technicians.

The staff, too, come here regularly for lunch, to read, to meet a colleague, a friend, or a student.  Each one of us relaxes here briefly, feeling whole and refreshed, so we can go on gifting our minds, hearts, and hands in service.

May all your gifts and giving nourish you and yours.  May the wonder of the natural world fill you with awe, delight, and the hope to carry on.  Wishing you adventures and abundant blessings in the New Year!

snow? so early? someone says sagely
‘it’s supposed to be a hard winter’
‘no wonder it’s snowing early’
good time to go where winter looks like spring!

but coming home, feeling that lightness
and pull of ice on the Scio Church bridge
sloshing down the muddy road
I am once again captivated by snow on towering trees

like cake icing blown at high velocity
splattered onto everything
here liming the branch edge
highlighting it against the night sky

there revealing the skeleton within the limb or trunk
like the holloween costumes so recently discarded
here pines fan out their newly puffed needles
there leafy branches droop with the weight of icy wet

now home, warm light bounces off the brick wall opposite
creating a tunnel
conducting me into the house and the holidays
filled to the brim with memories, good byes, and dreams