It was a warm sunny day, so unusual for January 1st in upstate NY. I gathered my belongings to leave from an overnight stay, took them to my car and left them on the hood.  I didn’t have the keys. This stump and the green grass below it called out to me saying, “Come, join us to enjoy this extraordinary new day!”

I lay down on the soft green earth bed, feeling the comforting embrace of the old stump as it stood by so unnoticed by the world. But I noticed every hue, wrinkle and shade of it’s complex past. The twigs and brambles of the vines hang on the old wood looking lifeless now, but soon will bloom again. The fungus clings for life on what is no longer living.

To me, it was all alive, past, present, future. It was all there beneath the blue sky and floating clouds, looking up, pointing the way, to brightness. Yes, bright, lively, warm, embracing, comforting, resting yet moving, forward toward all that is good.

The year of the Dragon is dawning!