November Blessing Winter has begun so early this year. The cold scene of snowy rooftops and gardens before me inspires quiet, a contemplative mood but no desire to speak. A millennial eastward progress of icy wisps crossing blue opens a beneficent vastness in my chest where I know with mystic certainty the world I inhabit is thoroughly good. Not the world I see on the news or the world viewed through eyes of conflict which passes for history, or even the world of scripture or sagas or epics or odysseys fraught with battles and heroes—
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