A beautiful picture taking on a truly perfect day.  Even if I didn't see it then.  Next time I will.

Today is Sunday, January 1st, 2017.

Today is number one of seven.

Today is number one of twelve.

Today is number one of thirty-one.

Today is the first day of 2017 and 2017 is 2 + 0 + 1 + 7 = 10. And numerologically 10 is 1 + 0 = 1.  Making today number one of the next ten years.

And because I was born in 1957, today is the first day of the first year in the sixth decade of my life.

So, because I wanted to be ready, it made sense to me to wake up today, at 4 AM, and make coffee and open up my journal. Not the new journal, I'd bought in honor of the new year, mind you.  But the old the journal I'd begun in Fall of 2016 because in that journal there were 24 empty pages remaining. 

The new journal was right there next to my chair and the pull of starting fresh was strong. My first inclination was to close the old journal and turn my back on the old year and the season past and make a new start. But those 24 empty pages called to me. And I realized that it wasn't about wasting paper. It was about a space that had to be acknowledged. 

That space between the old and the new is always the same for me and, whenever I encounter it, I'm reminded of a trapeze artist, letting go of the old bar and hurtling through thin air in the direction of the new one. I think of how everyone always has to let go of whatever it is we've been holding onto and trust - even though there is no hard guarantee that the next thing will be there when we need it.

Leading up to that space I worry about what will happen and think long and hard about how it can all go wrong. But once I'm in it, the uncertainty and fear fade. All at once I remember how vitally important that space is.  In and of itself. 

It is not the space of letting go, although in those 24 no longer empty journal pages I did just that. And it isn't the space of moving forward, either, even though towards the end of those 24 pages I did that too.

Instead, it is a space that is moving and still and empty and full all at the same time.  It is a space of courage and of faith. A space of transition.  A space where anything is possible and everything is in is motion. 

So I encourage everyone to take stock of what was, by most accounts, a very trying year.  I encourage everyone to sort it out and let it go and make that jump.  I encourage everyone to embrace the space between what was and what will be. Because that space is freedom.

Last October, right around this time, I visited the homestead and grave site of my great...great aunt Rebecca Nurse.  

Rebecca was the last "witch" to be hung as a result of the infamous trials in Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts).  She was 71 years old, in ill-health and so hard of hearing that she could not respond correctly to the questions she was asked.

The evidence against her came in the form of "spectral evidence" or psychic "apparitions" perceivable only to her accusers.  Such evidence was allowable under English law in the trial of accused witches only.  Other special legal conditions granted in English witch trials included the testimony of children, statements of sworn enemies, and evidence presented by those who owed money to the accused.

After readings my great aunt's testimony and Shirley Jackson's wonderful book, The Witchcraft of Salem Village, I feel certain that Rebecca did not have malicious bone in her body and was absolutely innocent of the "spectral torture" of the young girls who testified against her.  Instead, she was a gentle warm-hearted woman, loved by her family and community, less vulnerable to slander than many of the accused but a victim nonetheless.

She was not, of course, the only only one to suffer.

Of the 200+ people (most of whom were women) accused at Salem, twenty were put to death.  Nineteen of these twenty, including Rebecca and her sister Sarah, maintained their innocence right up to the time that they were hung.  A single victim, Giles Corey, refused to speak throughout his trial (because a plea would lead to forfeiture his land) and was, for that crime, sentenced to be crushed to death by heavy stones.  

Rebecca was remembered for her courage on the gallows. I like to think that, as a Christian, she held a strong conviction that she was going to a better place - and that this was a place her accusers were unlikely to see.  Even so, the months of hardship and dread in a primitive prison and the ultimate terror of Gallows Hill must have been almost impossible to bear.

Seeing Rebecca's home and the beautiful farm she and her family carved from the wilderness was a moving experience.  Just that morning we had been in Salem proper walking with the crowds, smiling at the costumes, and enjoying the many witch-themed shops.  The night before, I had stood with an large, boisterous group of people,  in the center of town, taking photos of the Samantha Stevens statue - enjoying the high spirits and outright celebration of all things witchy.  

Walking the same path Rebecca walked so long ago, however, made me see all of that in a different, and unexpected, light.

The most conservative of estimates tell us that an estimated 100,000 people, and most likely more, were put to death as a result of the witch hunts that spread across Europe and the colonies in an approximate three hundred year period (1450 to 1750).  While some of these people did practice some version of the Craft, all were innocent, in my opinion, of the curses and murders of which they were accused.  

Said to house as many as half a million documents, the Great Library at Alexandria represents the first concentrated effort to assemble the sacred wisdom of the world at a single site.  Buyers for the library traveled by land and by sea, collecting the wisdom of the ancient world - a world far wider than we might imagine - to bring it home to Alexandria. 

Founded by the Greco-Egyptian Pharaoh  Ptolomy I Soter,  in 283 BCE. the museum was a shrine of the Muses modeled after the Lyceum of Aristotle in Athens. It was a place of study which included lecture areas, gardens, shrines for each of the nine muses and even a zoo. The library was known to contain thousands of ancient scrolls from Assyria, Egypt, India, Greece, Persia and many other lands. Over 100 scholars were said to live at the site full-time performing research, lecturing upon or translating the precious documents it housed. 

The great library survived for several hundred years before it was lost completely.  Four possible tragedies are considered partially or wholly responsible for its destruction.  These include an accidental fire during Julius Caesar's Alexandrian War in 48 BCE, the attack of Aurelian in 270  CE, the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in 391 CE and associated Christian riot, and the Muslim conquest on or around 642 CE.  While historians debate the specifics, all agree that much of the great library's wisdom was irretrievably lost.

This summer was beautiful and bright and busy. In just a couple of months, I helped build a fence, planted a garden, remodeled a pantry, and took a relatively public step in the direction of my own earth-centered path.

In between those well-planned, over-sized events came a host of smaller and more spontaneous experiences - the feel of the dew on the grass, the sound of the wind coming down off the mountain, the moon lighting up the soft summer sky, the scent of fresh earth, the heat of garden, the taste of tomatoes straight off the vine - and somehow those small things ended up staying with me in a way that the big things do not.

Thesepics chronicle my summer in big ways and small.

The following pictures are taken on the top of the mountain behind our house, on a small parcel of woods that lies between us and the development.  If I could have one thing it would be to buy it and keep it as is forever.

My backyard though not really (legally) mine and well outside of my ability to protect.  Still in this space between what was and what will be - we walk, take deep breaths and look out from one mountaintop to another.  Beyond the the trestle and past the curve of the river, just out of view of this picture, is the land that once belonged to my grandfather. Land that I won't see up close again. Everything changes but the moment is always eternal. I'm grateful for all that offers.