Hubby and I went for a 5-mile hike in Great Falls National Park this morning. We saw two kayakers plunging down the falls, which didn’t have as much water as in spring, obviously, but still a little scary. Then they got out of the water next to a huge stack of racks, threw their kayaks on their backs, and climbed back up for another go. The path along the river is high on the cliff, up and down over rough, rocky ground and one close-the-edge call. On the way home we stopped at an estate sale at a mcmansion. They must have had more than a million bucks in Persian carpets alone, equally expansive artwork and over-sized furniture. The house was probably eight thousand square feet; they had more than a dozen couches in various rooms. I found a reclining swivel chair for a dang good price, which I’ve been holding out for for a long time. It’s sitting in our newly cleared garage until we find the time to re-arrange our living room furniture to fit it. Getting it into the Prius was a trick. We tied the hatch down with the jumper cables.

No sooner had we arrived home than I headed out again for another walk along the Potomac in DC. I haven’t been in the city in several months. I had a date with a group from the Center for Spirituality in Nature, celebrating the winter solstice with a reflective walk. We talked about the need for darkness in nature and in our lives, for drawing in and for restoration. It was a gray day, and we got drizzled on for a short while. Saw four bufflehead ducks flying fast up the river and a cormorant sitting on a rock drying its wings. Afterward we sat around a small fire and drank hot cider. It was a pleasant way to end the day. At the end of the walk the leader asked us to write a poem using the first letters of the words DARKNESS and CREPUSCULAR. Here it is:

Deep
Appreciation
Rising,
Kneeling,
Now
Ebbing,
Subtley,
Silently

Cacooning
Repose,
Elemental,
Purposeful,
Unyielding
Solitude,
Cradling
U
Like an
Angel
Rejoicing