Happy 2026

 

A New Year's Blessing

May this new year unfold with light and promise.

May your body feel strong, your mind feel clear

and your heart remain open to possibility.

May you awaken with purpose in your breath

and rest at night knowing you did enough.

May opportunity meet your effort,

patience walk beside ambition,

and challenges sharpen you

without ever hardening you.

May laughter arrive often and stay awhile.

May love, old and new, grow deeper, truer.

May you give freely without losing yourself,

and receive fully, without hesitation.

And when the road bends without warning,

may you trust the strength you’ve earned

and the wisdom you carry to guide you.

May this be a year of steady growth,

honest joy, and gentle courage,

a future that feels not only hopeful,

but open and welcoming too.

~ 'A New Year's Blessing' by Spirit of a Hippie

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion. -Simone de Beauvoir, author and philosopher (1908-1986)

Rabbit rabbit...wishing you good luck in this new beginning. (Girl on rabbit. Early 3rd century BC. Apulia Italy)

Today's goddess:

It's a new year, a birth of time, a beginning again. A wooden statue of a squatting woman giving birth supported by two attendants. 18th century CE, from south India, now housed at the National Museum in New Delhi

I was born in the year of the horse, 1942. No wonder I was crazy about them when a pre-teen...reading all the books, having a little white plastic horse who's saddle came off...but never being around live ones. I missed that! (Incidentally, no unicorns were mentioned while I was young, but I did have a story about Pegasus!)

Day after the rain during the night

 The Swannanoa was high and full of mud, showing the rain from last night.

Yes, that's the interstate highway showing through the trees.

Another shot showing the interstate, and the walk and more daffodils.

It was a bit windy, but I think I caught most of these in focus.

Looking back at the little river, which shot is better, this horizontal one, or the vertical...

One of Black Mountain's main lines of electricity comes through this land.

A bed that's been prepared for whatever the "farmers are going to put here."

While I was walking and taking photos, Mrs. Horse moved around a bit.

It's fun to consider that the little Swannanoa River might have flowed through this valley for centuries, carving it's route through these mountains. Now it's somewhat cultivated by a dam up in Montreat.

Sunshine and spring signs at the garden

 The people who own the house on the corner of Old 70 and Walker Rd, are very interested in a beautiful yard, all the way out to the street.

Mrs. Horse was munching grass near the fence at the Community Gardens, so I snuck up to get her picture.

Cool air but a clear sky brought a lot of gardeners out to work, though the dirt was a bit muddy still.

Our harbingers of spring were in different places, happy daffys.

I don't know what this early blooming bush is, and didn't want to bother the gardeners to ask.

There are some fun ornaments on plots...here a concrete owl.

Showing the whole plot with the owl at the far end.

Inside the barn were some seedlings. There was a freeze last night, so they were protected in here.

More tomorrow of my garden visit...

Finally New Mexico!

 We're not only welcomed to New Mexico, but our clocks went back an hour into Mountain Daylight TIme.

 I liked the welcoming banner.

 And then there were the first views of mesas...the sudden drop off from a plateau! We had arrived in New Mexico for sure.

 And there in the distance, a real mountain.

 It took a while to get to it...really just another mesa.  Isn't that spot on the windshield neat, it looks like a moon!

 When we next stopped for gas, the truck ahead of us had a horse wearing it's saddle. Cowboy country.

Rocks that are incredibly big are stacked up on this mesa.

TODAY'S QUOTE:

Sometimes we behave as though there was something more important than life. But what?

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry