Reflection on the Waning Days Approaching Winter Solstice

         Just a quiet reflection on these times we are living through, as the days grow shorter until December 21st, the longest night of the year. After, in incremental minutes and then hours, the days grow longer until the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. This photo of necklaces I make seems somehow appropriate, as we approach the Winter Solstice, perhaps what feels to me to be the holiest time of year.


        Pyrope and Grossular Garnet, Malachite, Fluorite, Pink Opal, Tourmaline, Golden Beryl or Heliador, Carnelian, Amber, Red Aventurine. What other than these names are needed for poetry?


       Click twice on the photo for a treat.

A Reminder of the Beauty of Life...

...In the form of a few simple gifts from the Earth: Turquoise, Aquamarine, Beryl, Carnelian, Garnet, Amethyst, Fluorite, Moonstone, Quartz, and more. It is interesting that coincident with the economic downturn, I came to realize with sadness that this was yet another gift not given of Earth's own free will. Excavation, wounding of the Earth, the destruction that is mining is involved. I slowed way down, production of these jewels has all but come to a halt. Now, photography of them has become the thing for me, still not ecologically pure, sadly, yet a nearly harmless pursuit of the joy I take in any creative endeavor. I continue to weigh what I give, what I take, and where I am closest to my ideal of ecology, the areas of greatest neutrality.