January Blues, Seasonal Color Deprivation

January means different things to different people.

For some it is a time of excitement with a blank calender of new opportunities and plans for a new year. For others it is a time of quiet reflection as life calms down after the holidays. It is easy to feel yourself sinking into a sense of aloneness and even depression as it seems everyone goes back into their own little world. It doesn't help that with winter comes cold, gray, dismal days and not near enough cheerful sunshine. 

 

The key to the quiet months following the holidays is to liven things up in your own life. Fill your home with the green of plants, the sound of music,enjoy the company of a pet. Get those creative juices flowing by reorganizing or redecorating. With social media it is so easy to just not read a book anymore. Rediscover the pleasure of disappearing into another world in another time.

 

Once the Winter Solstice passes, our days begin to lengthen again. Take note and you'll notice that we gain a half hour of daylight with every month until the Summer Equinox.

 

"Is not January the hardest month to get through?  When you have weathered that, you get into the gulfstream of winter, nearer the shores of spring."

Henry David Thoreau

 

Think of the color wheel as you plan ahead and enjoy the beauty of our natural world throughout the four seasons!  

   

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. George Santayana

 

While we wait for spring, enjoy the onslaught of gardening catalogs that usually come in the mail this time of year. Start plotting and dreaming of your ideas for gardening or landscaping next spring. Think of the kaleidoscope of color nature offers and enjoy the show.

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.  ~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Martin Luther

 

Tiger Swallowtails on Eupatorium

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about.  But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.  ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

Liatris

New England Fall Asters

Bluebeard

Globe Thistle

Maidengrass

Bamboo

Torchflower

Goldenrod

Rubeckia

Calendula

Butterfly Weed

Goldfish

Hibiscus

Dolly Parton Rose Hybrid Tea

Lava Flow Florabunda

Beebalm

Cosmos

Coneflower

Cleome

Chocolate Bergamot

Roman Chamomile

  Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.  ~John Muir

 

 Nature holds all the answers - go outside and ask some questions - open your heart and listen to the response!  ~Amethyst Wyldfyre,