Always my new year. Always a beginning. Always an answer to an unspoken question.
When I stray too far from the ways that keep me centered and whole--thinking, listening, sitting quiet and still--October reminds me.
In my kitchen I watch a ray of sunlight shift to copper at day's end. Apples on the counter wait to be peeled and sliced. Ginger simmers on the stove, its steam curling a golden trail through the room. Outside a cardinal calls to her mate from the oxblood leaves of the ninebark tree. What she sings to him I can never know, but her song keeps time with the beat of my own heart.
