Ferocious outside, cozy inside

Tonight a wind has blown in off the north Pacific with a vengeful force to it. In the two years we've been here, I've grown to love these winter winds that pummel the house some evenings, and it is almost always at nighttime these storms blow in, but tonight is a little different. Tonight the door over there is creaking like it really could blow open, busting the lock and chain. We've put a chair and a 7-gallon jug of water against it to help bolster our defenses. The little bit of lamplight I have going is flickering and we've filled a thermos of hot water just in case we lose power, there can still be tea. 

The wind isn't howling or whistling through the windows, it's stampeding right into them, like in Lord of the Rings when Arwen summons the flood brigade at the Ford of Bruinen. And I am sitting here enjoying my nightly cuppa cocoa, and reading, as ever. When really intense gales hit, I glance sideways over my right shoulder toward the window, as though avoiding direct eye contact will maintain fortification.

As terrible as it is, I do love it. I love the wild chaos outside, and the warm coziness inside. I love imagining the tumultuous sea just down the hill, and how it must be turbulently churning right now, while I sit here only a few hundred yards away, safe and snug by the fire. 

I already miss the unpredictable moodiness of the weather here, for the days soon coming when we'll have moved on. One day I'll have to write about these nights, and how they often transported me into some other [mari]time, when I was a lighthousekeeper in the 1700's on some cold and brutal remote northerly coastline, or weathering the storm down in the cabin of my old wooden boat in the 1850's, praying to God and sipping whiskey, with only one golden beeswax candle for a companion. 

I knew we were in for it tonight, as the weather all day was strange and unstable. In the span of a few hours, we saw hail, sleet, gray skies, new snow on the foothills across the bay, then golden sunshine and blue skies. The sea went from dark blue to Caribbean turquoise, calm to white-capping, and everything in between. 

Here are some of the pictures from just before sunset...

Knitterly Things

This knitting hobby of mine is beginning to stack up. It seems I almost have a small knitwares shop on my hands, kept neatly tucked away in a brown paper bag in my crafts closet. Though it'd have to be a shop offering only hats, cowls, and ear warmers. 

I even designed a logo and had it printed onto suede tags to give things a more professional and finished look. 

Maybe when Autumn comes 'round again, I'll open a real shop.

Maybe.

Piloting the pair in harmony

 A new embroidery to add to the collection. This one contains some symbolism that I won't go into too much detail on, other than to say it was inspired by the Vedic-Celtic connection I've been learning about. 

A Celtic Druid rides a chariot with 8-spoked Dharmachakra wheels, pulled by a pair of winged horses, one mortal, the other immortal, which speaks something to the daily work of navigating this material impermanent human life, alongside the journey of the eternal soul that lives within, which is certainly the most important of all in my view- that devotion to and connection with God, requiring much more [especially inwardly] of us, than most modern people understand or are willing to give. The committed dedicate daily to piloting this team as harmoniously as possible; if one horse becomes weakened, the whole effort is in vain. And some of us, certainly myself, are seeking to understand these ancient ways our ancestors communed with the Divine [because I do feel they were closer to original truths than we are today.] 

When studying such things, and you come across interesting overlaps, it can feel like a magical secret has the tiniest brief beam of light shining on it, just for you to see. I've been fortunate to have such moments over the past several months, hence the inspiration for this Vedic-Celtic inspired stitching.

And here's a fitting photo I took a couple of years ago near Taos, New Mexico.