"And Now Let Us Welcome the New Year Full of Things That Have Never Been." ~Rilke

Oh, vain Narcissus, you are so eager to be the first flower to bloom that you open in the midst of Winter! I took this photo today of my pretty Narcissus, wet with raindrops.

It's a rainy, overcast New Year's Eve here in Louisiana. No seeing that full blue moon tonight. That's the stump where my tree used to be. I have bulbs planted all around it...mostly Iris's.



I took a walk around my squishy back yard this morning and saw that even my Blueberry bushes are starting to bud. Winter, what winter??? I put out bird seed and stale bread for all of our birds. The Cardinals are magnificent, like blotches of red paint against a sky of gray canvas.



My Chocolate Mint coming up around my Blueberry bushes. It smells divine.


A tangle of Morning Glory seeds on my patio fence just waiting to drop and sprout.


Ray found this old washtub a few years ago in the woods and I planted it full of Strawberries in 2008. They're fast spreading, in spite of the cold.


My one big accomplishment of 2009 was painting this one little wall pink in my laundry room. It took me all of two weeks to paint it, but I did it! Happy New Year, friends!!


~*~Marion~*~



I leave you with one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems to contemplate:


The Journey
by Mary Oliver


One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice ---
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do ---
determined to save
the only life you could save.


(From: "Dream Work")