On to the heights

This week I've been all about staying indoors - partly because the weather crashed again last night with several inches of new snow and temps below 20, and partly because I have felt a pull to be still and consider what it is that I am doing. 

As much as I've been dreaming of summer and being outdoors often (distracting myself from the present), the this snowy winter has served a special purpose that I'm only just coming to appreciate. It has kept me inside, but it has kept me still and watchful, nesting.

I found these tiny ice feathers growing on one of our windows this week!

It has kept me watching snowflakes fall slowly out of the front window as Ravel's piano trio drifts from the record player (Cody's "snow" song).  We've watched little brown rabbits from our bedroom window in the moonlit backyard, sitting upright with perky ears listening in the still cold, while we chatter about their cuteness. Vein-like tubes run across the snow where I suspect mice have tunneled to and fro visiting their winter stores. I've even found deer tracks pressed in the snow leading right up to our front door. We've crept over paths turned to rivers of ice in the nearby park, and eaten lots of good crockpot chili. 

This winter has kept me in-tune with the natural world just by watching what goes on around our home, and it is simple and lively. It reminds me of why I do what I do, and why I have pursued sustainability as a career. It isn't a straight path by any means; it takes a lot of creativity to pursue any one path inside this "field". It also requires being comfortable with an uncomfortable level of uncertainty. Cody is a cellist and I am a sustainability communications professional. One career is hundreds of years old, and the other starts tomorrow. It feels paradoxical, and I think it has encouraged us to be alert, watchful, and in-tune more than ever this winter.  I am thankful for all these snowflakes ; ) 

"My strength is in the Lord.

He makes my feet like the feet of the deer,

and leads me on to the heights."

Trusting through trial. Peace, the deftness and swiftness to navigate safely as we are designed to when we hold on to His promise and listen. Imagining a delicately stepping deer moving through the quiet, listening carefully - it is beautiful.