CRAVINGS

This time of year, between the gatherings of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the glitz of New Year's, I find myself craving many things. Cookies, for one. I do love homemade cookies, and Christmas is the time to dress up cookies in their finest. I make an apricot-pistachio biscotti dipped in white chocolate which could be my ticket out of my day job.

I also crave smell. The resiny scent of pine, of exotic cinnamon and cardamon, the clean scent of snow.

I crave music. If you listen, winter is full of sound--howling wind, the tinkle of snow flakes, the groaning of tree limbs under their weight of white. My children perform in their winter concerts, and their music sates me.

I crave light. The days are so short, and so dark. Snow, at least, reflects the little light there is and gives even the grayest day some hope. We've had snow on the ground for a week now, a rarity in this part of the world. At BJs, I bought a Happy Light, and I sit in front of it and bathe in the replicated sunlight every day.

Even as I crave sound, I crave its absence. Silence, the space between everything else, is as great a gift as noise. Now, as I write this, the house is silent, everyone still tucked in their beds. They will rise, and the day will become full of busy-ness. This afternoon, I will find silence in myself when I go to yoga nidra. May that silence carry me through the upcoming week.

What do you crave in this dark time of the year? What is it you want most?

Peace...