The bark beetle's larvae create "galleries" in the growth tissue under the bark, known as the cambium.  Each beetle has its own pattern, or signature. As the last hours of the year tick away, may your happy, moving, gratitude-filled experiences be etched in your memories and living tissue so that no amount of time could erase them.  And, may those difficult times, the heartaches, loss, and betrayals be written in the snow, to melt away and be recycled without evidence they ever existed. On the surface, it may seem easy to identify where you would place each event.  Wisdom asks, "Are you sure..." and invites you to go deeper.

Life seems to have a way of narrowing our focus over time. When we are young, our imaginations create worlds upon worlds, and when asked what we want to be when we grow up, our greatest dreams pour forth as though it's already a given.
Then the dream thief arrives, and one-by-one, steals our hopes until we are left defending the one or two that remain...leaving us focused on a very narrow bandwidth of life.

The mysterious raven is an appropriate talisman of transmutation on this Winter Solstice. Renowned for traveling between worlds, he is aloof, yet always watching. Because he has one foot in each world, he is of both...and neither. There is no judgment on which is better; nor is there fear. Death and birth are both beginnings, and endings, depending on which side we stand. This is the infinite flow of energy as we transform from one state to another.