I’m afraid this is where our family will be found tonight—snuggled up in our cozy burrow observing what has come to be an annual tradition.
For another picture of the groundhog at home, please see GroundhogCandlemas.
Roshan (“Bright Light”)
Marius
Elaine
I hope you have paid your debts, hung your lucky couplets on the door, swept your house clean of ill-fortune, and decked it and yourself in red, because today is the first day of Chinese New Year celebrations, and you have fifteen days of festivities ahead of you. Our own culinary interpretation of this holiday: tonight I will make crispy tofu and stir-fried broccoli and ginger but will order spicy eggplant and vegetarian dumplings from Mr. Chen’s Organic Chinese Restaurant around the corner. We’ve already prepared our New Year fortunes—more on that later.
2012 is the Year of the Dragon, and if you were born in a Dragon year, you are (according to Mr. Chen’s placemats) eccentric, and your life complex. You have a very passionate nature and abundant health. Marry a Monkey or Rat late in life, and avoid the Dog!
Today is also the birthday of painter Édouard Manet (1832-1883), who was himself born in the Year of the Dragon. I hope that, in addition to his other qualities, he had a sense of humor.
All over the United States today, citizens are taking up one-day service projects (which will sometimes result in longer-term commitment) inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to compassion and justice. What a refreshing alternative to our customary observation of a national holiday: shopping the sales.
This is a detail of an entry in my daughter’s second grade homeschooling block, Saints, Heroes, and Heroines. For the rest of the entry, please see Martin Luther King, Jr.
The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is entered;
Then let us all our sins downtread,
And joyfully all appear.
Let’s be merry be this holiday
And let us run with sport and play
Hang sorrow, let’s cast care away—
God send us a merry new year!
—English, 13th century
Christopher
Jacky
For the First Day of Christmas, a detail of a larger painting (part of a long-ongoing series, on which more later), and an excerpt from a letter written by a 16th century monk to a friend.
I wish you all a heavenly, peaceful, and joyful Christmas season.
I salute you.
There is nothing I can give you which you have not,
but there is much that while I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.
Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.
Take joy.
And so at this Christmastime, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
—Fra Giovanni, 1513
Ann
Stephanie
On this shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, I post a light-in-darkness painting (one of a series currently in progress based on Washington National Cathedral) and a poem by Patrick Kavanaugh. In celebration of the solstice, look for shooting stars tonight and tomorrow in the constellation Ursa Minor.
Last year, the solstice fell, for the first time since 1638, on the day of a lunar eclipse. For a sketch in honor of this event, please see Winter Solstice/Lunar Eclipse.
A Star
Beauty was that
Far vanished flame,
Call it a star
Wanting better name.
And gaze and gaze
Vaguely until
Nothing is left
Save a grey ghost-hill.
Here wait I
On the world’s rim
Stretching out hands
To Seraphim.
—Patrick Kavanaugh
In the season of the ubiquitous brown truck, I post this love poem by Alice N. Persons.
For another [visual] take on the same subject, please see Season of Waiting.
you bring me all the things I order
are never in a bad mood
always have a jaunty wave as you drive away
look good in your brown shorts
we have an ideal uncomplicated relationship
you’re like a cute boyfriend with great legs
who always brings the perfect present
(why, it’s just what I’ve always wanted!)
and then is considerate enough to go away
oh, UPS Man, let’s hop in your clean brown truck and elope !
ditch your job, I’ll ditch mine
let’s hit the road for Brownsville
and tempt each other
with all the luscious brown foods —
roast beef, dark chocolate,
brownies, Guinness, homemade pumpernickel, molasses cookies
I’ll make you my mama’s bourbon pecan pie
we’ll give all the packages to kind looking strangers
live in a cozy wood cabin
with a brown dog or two
and a black and brown tabby
I’m serious, UPS Man. Let’s do it.
Where do I sign?
—Alice N. Persons
This is a good day to read about the discovery of the true author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” who was NOT Clement Clarke Moore. The naughty plagiarist.
The first candle.
Julia
Bridget
