We were talking about music and finding beauty even when it isn’t easy. On the solstice a friend came with me to look for holiday gifts, and somewhere between Belltower Records in the Norad Mill and the Bear and Bee Bookshop we were talking about languages and translations, and the layers of meaning you may only hear when you know the original words.
And gifts can come in many forms. I told him about a poem I had tried to make my way through in French, a poem written by a free Black poet in New Orleans in 1845, and the sense of exile, the weight of living in a world that tries to deny your existence. And he recognized connections to psalms and the courage to sing.
This week has given me that kind of light and rediscovery. An old friend played her guitar around a Hanukkah bonfire, and a new friend helped me write down a melody I’d been haltingly trying to finger on an old tenor recorder. A highland cow lay napping in her winter pasture, and the farmer told me how his farm holds cycles of life.
Last night I was coming up Route 7 by Green River Farm, and a silver-grey shape flashed across the road ahead, lean and large as a big dog. Was a coy wolf slipping through the shadows down the hill from the five corners? Up the hill, the women in the sculpture in the fields stood looking out under the stars of the mother bear.
Wherever you are in this week, whatever holidays you celebrate and however you walk through the world in these winter days, may they bring us all connection for the new year!
Holiday lights
Bright flairs fill the night this week, from LumiNAMA displays in North Adams to Winterlights at Naumkeag and Nightwood at the Mount — and winter color shows at Windy Hill Farm in Great Barrington and in the native plant garden at the Bennington Museum.
A Christmas Tree made of books glows in the window of the Bear and Bee Bookshop.
The birches along the blue stairs glow red and gold like candycanes in the dark in Winterlights at Naumkeag.
Trees in the gardens and along the blue stairs glow golden at Winterlights at Naumkeag.
Lights glimmer to the music of Roomful of Teeth in a holiday window display in North Adams.
A young cedar tree stands against the winter sky in the native garden at Bennington Museum.
Winterberry glows in the sun at Windy Hill Orchard in Great Barrington.
Lights gleam on a long table in the forecourt at the Mount in NightWood.
Events coming up …
Find more art and performance, outdoors and food in the BTW events calendar.
