Cancer

The sun rose from the southern sky this morning. Okay, maybe it leaned a bit to the east, but not by much. I wondered if winter solstice got ignored, or the axis of the earth shifted a bit over the past few days. I wouldn’t have noticed with how sidetracked and discombobulated I’ve felt.

So yeah, apparently, we’ve bypassed winter solstice and moved into a new phase of the earth/sun cycle.

I suppose it’s possible that the sun has risen further south every day for months and I’ve only just today noticed. In fact, that’s the more likely explanation isn’t it?

Reason flew out the window, though.

Barometer Glass (Photo credit: cobalt123)

It feels to me like the other way around. A change in the cosmic mechanisms of the universe feels more likely. Cogs slipping, everything off kilter just a bit. At least in my heart and in my head that’s what’s happening. So if the sun chose to follow along, I’d completely understand.

There’s more to it than the angle of the sunlight, lower and more southern than normal. My wildflowers pushed up through the rocky soil of the front yard four weeks ago. Normally those tenacious little seedlings wait until after December and sometimes into late January to show off their leaflets.

But not this year. Nope. My front yard’s awash in a carpet of green. African Daisies cover the majority of the area, but even the California Poppies have spread out and filled in normally barren areas. Odd.

I blame it on the ridiculous three-day rainfall we experienced around Thanksgiving time. Our winter rains, traditionally a December thing, showed up early and often.

As further proof that nature’s off-balance, the trees are dropping bright orange leaves as if we live in New England in the fall. That usually happens in a much less colorful way in January, when we have a freeze, the leaves turn brown overnight and then a windstorm rips them from the branches a week or two later.  But not this year.

There’s frost covering the lawn at the park every morning as well. There’s a solid white sheet draped over the whole expanse of green, giving it an aged patina with a bite of cold. As the sun inches up, (from the south) a kind of steamy fog lifts off the surface of the grass and gives the area a Middle Earth feel. If Hobbits and Trolls and Elves start tromping about the earth’s surface around here I won’t startle one tiny bit.

We’ve even had some unseasonably warm temperatures. High seventies, flirting with eighties, in December! Kids run barefoot in the grass that hours earlier wore an icy film. How is that possible?

Because, as I’ve been trying to tell you, everything’s flummoxed.

flum·moxed 

adjective

1. bewildered or perplexed.

Confusion abounds here in the desert this year.

It all matches my internal environment, that tundra in my mind and heart. A little lost, uncertain, trying to leaf and bloom, drenched in sweat and rain, changing colors and moods in a confusing array of signals about what life is or is not going to do next.

Aneroid barometer (Photo credit: explainthatstuff)

If the sun decides to rise from the north or even from the west tomorrow I’d just nod and say, “of course, that stands to reason.” If snow decides to fall from a desert sky and settle in among the cactus needles, I’d not wonder at such a rarity.

Honestly the most appropriate weather, to match my internal barometer, would rain down in torrents a cold, soaking waterfall of heaven’s tears to mingle with my own.

Any day now a dam will burst and earth will fill with sorrow.

At least for a while.