Category: winter

by Rachel Sally

Love-in-Idleness

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it “love-in-idleness.”
Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

—Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2 Scene 1

Happy lovers’ day!
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by Rachel Sally

Frost and Desolation

I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight.
Do you understand this feeling?
This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.
Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even… a mouse.

Happy Christmas all!

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by Rachel Sally

Back With Their Flocks

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.

—Howard Thurman

Merry Christmas!
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by Rachel Sally

You Were Together

“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map.
It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together.
Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”

― Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

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