A Short Break

The cats were conspiring with the ladder to try and kill me, so I decided to take a short break from decorating and go for a walk outside in the forest...where there are bears, mountain lions, coyotes, slippery patches of ice, and giant pine cones that could, and do, fall at any time.  Even so, the forest is safer for me than my cottage when the cats are conspiring!  Thankfully, it usually doesn't take them long to remember who feeds them and the conspiracies come to an end.

I took the above photo on December 22, 2009.  There had been a snow much like the one we just had a few days ago and, while I was out walking, the late afternoon sunlight on the holly leaf caught my eye first, then I noticed the patch of ice crystals on the leaf slowly turning back into fluid water.  When I talk about magic being all around us, this is the kind of magic I'm referring to...nature's magic, so full of wonder and always there, if we pay attention.

A Quotation for Monday

"The visible world isn't the only world, and the writers of fairy tales and ghost stories, mystics and philosophers, have known that for centuries."  From "Afterwards" by Rosamund Lupton 

This is just a photo of some of the water in the creek that runs near my cottage, in happier times when there was a lot of water.  I intensified the contrast and color by using Microsoft Office Picture Manager to make more visible all the shapes the water is making.  Or... is the water reflecting the shapes of things and beings that aren't ordinarily visible to our eyes?