winter dao

for my friends in Canada, brrrrr! winter A homeless man dies in the gutter. A tree cracks in the cold: A shocking sound. At the winter solstice, the day is shortest of all and night is longest. It can also be the time of bitter cold. The wind blows with a frigid ferocity, cutting all before it. Snow and ice become deadly. Those who are homeless die of exposure. Even the mightiest of trees can slit from the drop in temperature. The sound of a tree snapping is a sudden slap. The horrors, the tragedies that this nadir brings! Winter tortures the world with icy whips, and those who are weak are ground beneath its glacial heels. Sometimes, we dare not even lament those who die in the onslaught of winter, in fear that the tears will freeze upon our faces. But we see, and hear. Huddling closer to the fire, we vow to survive. No matter how affected we are by misfortune, we must remember that this is the lowest turn of the wheel. Things cannot forever go downward. There are limits to everything — even the cold, and the darkness, and the wind, and the dying. They call this the first day of winter, but actually it is the beginning of winter's death. From this day on, we can look forward to warming and brightening. winter 365 Tao daily meditations Deng Ming-Dao (author) ISBN 0-06-250223-9 duckdaotsu.org tao hub Sinakefu Lake 1957 by Fu Bao Shi We have received a donation to the Heifer Project of a flock of Geese and a new gift of "three shares" of a goat! I am matching every two gifts.. http://catalog.heifer.org/index.cfm will get you to the main catalogue http://catalog.heifer.org/ducks.cfm is the duck spot. for the folks who would rather not send animals, there is a special gift of knitting basket, trees, or bees! receive a full HTML copy of the daily meditation sent directly to your inbox, please send a note with the words "subscribe tao" in the subject line to duckdaotsu to unsubscribe or take a vacation, contact me with specifics at the same address!