A World Gone Gray

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Year’s end, and we await the storm in a world gone gray.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Omen

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

It seemed to entertain him to swivel his great white hood and fix his eyes upon ours through the opposite end of the lens, as if to say, I see you. 

I know you.

He is a good omen, and it was a good day.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Firebird

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

She is my Firebird, all flame-red feathers and fiery spirit in the deep new cold of the Little Winter.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

The Little Winter Weeps

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

The Little Winter weeps.

It weeps for the ice that melts away, it weeps for the truncated light of the still-short day.

It weeps because this is the way the world ends, and this time around the sun, the world of the year to come is not cause for hope.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

The Wind That Brings the Winter

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

For tonight, they are gone, though not entirely: The westerly forces of yesterday have been succeeded on this night by the one who rarely visits, the North Wind, the coldest of them all. It is a wind less wild, less unruly, less turbulent and tumultuous than its young cousins, but one with an arrow’s force and a scalpel’s precision: It cuts deep, past bone to soul itself. It does not bother with play, but gets straight to work, for it has a job to do.

It is, after all, the wind that brings the winter.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Illumination

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Tomorrow, the cold will be cold; the wind will be wind; the light will be light. But for this day, they combine to present us with gifts, unimagined, undeserved, the unconceived gifts of the spirits: Father Sun and Little Spirit Moon and the birth of illumination.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Vigil

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

On this night, we sit vigil for many things: for life and the future; for memory and grief. We sit in a dark lit red and green, rich with lush and living boughs, and wait for that over which we have no control.

We sit vigil for loss, and for love, too.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Quiet

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Quiet.

It is a hallmark of the Little Winter, a time when the snow falls soft and deep, then shrouds the world in a veil of cloud the color of shell and smoke.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Spirits of the Winter

Photo copyright Aji, 2016;
all rights reserved.

The spirits of the winter know that they are safe here.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

First Light

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

On this day, the day belongs to first light.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

The Light Knows

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

For today, the light draws its own lines, wavering shadows upon the snow, interstices between and in the lines themselves, spaces between the worlds where the spirits live and walk.

We will cross one as we sleep, unawares, but the light knows.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Familiar

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

On a day when nothing is as it should be, when the shadows encroach and that which they hide stalks even the daylight hours, it is a time to look to the familiar. 



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Snow Like Fire

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

On the knife wind and fading light of the Little Winter comes snow like fire: white-hot sparks showering through the cracks between the bare boards of the stable.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Elder

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

On this day, when the little winter is become large and full and deep, blizzard winds that cut like elemental razors and blowing snow that blinds eyes and steals breath for its own, The Old Man’s presence, white dusting on his wrinkled face as he calls the light, seems like its own gift.

I like to think that he works now in tandem with the spirit of another elder, one who once was like us but now more resembles him: an elemental spirit who stands upon the summit and commands the storm, who raises his hands above his head, arms open to embrace the world by way of the winter light.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Between Worlds

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

The Little Winter is a time of mystery . . . of snow magic and spirit medicine. It is one of those rare times of the year, just a moment, really, when the threshold between worlds chooses to show itself — just for a moment, just a brief glimpse, only visible to those who know to look and can be bothered to do it.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Vortex

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

The vortex is real, but Trickster is its newest name, a being more mercurial even than the light it holds in close embrace.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

The Bridge

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

It is, for all the world, the bridge — the bridge to the other world.

And tonight, it is possible to believe that the ancestors travel the bridge, that when we sleep, they will come to dance, to smile upon us, to bathe us in the light of their love. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

The Rise of the Little Spirit Moon

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

And so, for this one night at year’s end, far from the sky spirits who ride the cold north wind, they send their children: lesser spirits, yes, but spirits of the winter light all the same, spirits who dance with me at the rise of the Little Spirit Moon.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Proof of Life

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Look closely. Where once were seeming skeletons, the stormy light of the little winter shows in silhouette the robes on their bones once more. Threadbare, true, not yet enough to warm them, but that will change.

In this season, if no other, in this time of the little death, we are afforded proof of life.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Inferno

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

The skies are seas, aflame — an inferno that burns nothing but dust motes and eyes that look too long upon it.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.