Awyn's Animals Keeping Cozy in the Winter Cold

[Thom Courcelle]

Who doesn't want to crawl underneath a cozy quilt or a down comforter in the heart of a bracing great white North American winter and hear mythological stories from the ravens...or get a bedtime story read by a furry-cuddly bear family?

I just went outside in the NEGATIVE 2-DEGREE-FARENHEIT (negative 19-degrees Celsius) frigid snowy landscape behind the house in order to put more bird-seed feed in the birdhouse feeder. It has been so cold that the winter birds keep emptying the feeder within days. It's wonderful being able to see their beautiful colors come so close to the window. Some have distinctive personalities; and the variety surprises us sometimes with birds we didn't expect to winter over this far north!

Winter is a time to take comfort in the smallness of life that persists through the darkness and the cold... Sometimes that includes ourselves, too—how we manage through such harsh winter weather conditions. Winter is a time for huddling-down and doing creative things, artistic things, things that show our resilience. Awyn's resilience comes in part in remembering the comforts of storytelling time from her childhood, the creative stories that her mother invented (as she notes in the included correspondence).

The birds know that butterflies and flowers will come again in time. For now, we wait and "bear" the cold.

Thanks for another lovely correspondence, Awyn!