Happy Winter Solstice 2012

OK, the world hasn't ended (yet) if you're reading this. (as many more people than usual expect to happen on Dec. 21, 2012)
I loved my grandson's FaceBook postings where he asked people to send their valuables to him before the end of the world happened.  Smart guy.

Lake Tomahawk, Spring 2012

Here are a few of my favorite places, which remind me of all my friends with whom I've shared each place.  It's a time of remembering on the darkest day of the year.

Pear Tree blooming by UU Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley, Black Mountain, 2012

A community of people come together every Sunday, year in and year out, here at this small brown church.  I especially enjoy being a choir member, and recently started volunteering as secretary for the Board of Trustees.

Flat Creek, Montreat, NC, Summer 2012

Nature is my source, everyone's source.  This creek is just there.  I like to go walking along it, or sit beside it, listening to its voice in the silence of the woods.

Blue Ridge Parkway, Fall 2012

The Blue Ridge is a place set aside from the areas it passes through, and provides vistas of the mountains around it.  I'm a sucker for vistas.  Just let me get my camera.

The Clay Studio of Black Mountain Center for the Arts

The community studio of which I'm a part, as well as a volunteer once a week.  Here many people have spent time shaping mud into artifacts of one kind or another, while the actual process of creativity has changed them.  A place of exploration, a place of healing, a place of sharing, a place of sometimes hurting.

A place in which I can make my home, watching seasons change, slowly building my own space.

I'm preparing for a new blog in the new year.  One which only shows one photo a day of Black Mountain and the Western North Carolina sites.  Hope you'll visit it (and I'll include a link here when I start it).

Whatever you do this Solstice-time, enjoy being around those you love.  Make the effort to reach out to those you think might be short on human contact.  It is appreciated a thousand-fold.

I now post on this blog every other day, and on my pottery blog the other days of the week.  After all, I have a life.  Well, I want to have one, anyway.