downtown snowman, safe and sound
—
“snowfall rouses your inner child to dream and play once more.”
-angie weiland-crosby
snow day yesterday at last
a really good day to stay home from school
—
Inuit in Canada’s North have their own unique names for the months of the year. Aseena Mablick, an announcer for CBC Nunavut’s Inuktitut-language radio program Tausunni, has been collecting information on the names of the months in Inuktitut for years.
Mablick says one of the reasons she’s sharing this now is to “keep the language.”The names in Inuktitut are interconnected with the environment and wildlife surrounding the Inuit in Canada’s North.”It’s a truthful and honest calendar for people who are living over here, everyday, like us,” she says. “We just follow mother nature’s ways for naming the calendar.”
Each region in Nunavut has its own unique names for the calendar, and Mablick shared with us just two of the regions she’s looked into — Baffin region (also known as the Qikiqtaaluk Region) and Nunavik (northern Quebec).
January In Nunavik, January is “Naliqqaittuq”, literally meaning “nobody’s able to compete with it,” says Mablick. “It has to do with the coldest weather in that month.”
January is called “Qaummagiaq” in the Baffin region. It means “bright day coming back.”
meanwhile in ann arbor…
==
credits: cbc news (north), aseena mablick, deadline detroit
when walking by the river
—
“today is one of those excellent january partly cloudies
in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt,
and then the shadow sweeps it away.
you know you’re alive. you take huge steps,
trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet.”
-annie dillard
—
huron river, argo park, ann arbor, mi, usa – january 2023
“i heard a bird sing in the dark of december.
a magical thing.
and sweet to remember.
we are nearer to spring than we were in september.
i heard a bird sing in the dark of december.”
-oliver herford
picture from a past solstice celebration
—
every year
one of my favorite things to teach and share with my class
is the story and traditions of the winter solstice
i get to play the sun
the children play the tilting earth and the seasons
who spin and dance and throw snow
as the season changes
the sun stays in the middle
offering extra light
to the other side of the earth now tilting toward it
knowing it will always return to them
even as our days grow shorter
they quietly rest on the ground
waiting, waiting
only to emerge
when the time is right
happy to dance once more
in the light of the warm spring sun.
—
*notes: here is my recipe for the winter solstice, and many thanks to all for your low-tech special effects support of this performance: torn paper snowflakes made by the children, many smiles, a bit of dizziness, a sun doing an interpretive dance, a person to turn off and on the classroom lights at just the right moment, a flashlight, a yellow paper sun, a dj to play the music (‘carol of the bells’ by george winston, and ‘here comes the sun’ by the beatles) at just the right time, and a class full of kinder/whirling twirling planets throwing snow, lying down, and awakening as emerging new life in the spring when the sun returns. somehow it all falls into place, each year a bit differently, as is the way of the world.
—
“spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. joy is the essence of life.”
-agnivesh
https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=787006252392996
Reindeer under the aurora
—
“i always believe that the sky is the beginning of the limit.”
-MC Hammer
“winter, through your hoary frost, I travel on, longing to be lost.”
angie weiland-crosby
aren’t these just adult snowsuits?
—
“let’s spend the weekend pulling out winter clothes we put into storage last weekend.”
-author unknown, could be anyone from michigan
—
link for walking sleeping bags: https://amzn.to/3s1FXCA