Here’s a little solstice story to read while you’re awaiting the big eclipse tonight. If you miss it or it’s cloudy, there’s another one in 2094.

Each Christmas between about 1940 until her death in 1966, my mom, Virginia, would hand-paint Christmas cards. A lucky hundred people would received these little watercolor and ink gems with her poetry inside. Each was slightly different, each a gift from someone who really couldn’t spare a moment of her short life. Books and articles waited, speaking engagements waited, her family waited – buying MY Christmas goodies waited – while she lined the cards up in rows on her painting table. I did the same thing too, until a few decades ago I realized I just couldn’t paint 100 of the same anything.

I occasionally hear from someone who still has a few of these – the most ancient would now be 70 years old. Sometimes they’re framed and hanging like a real painting – which, of course, they are. I think she would be amazed at that, because, for Virginia, they were just little Christmas expressions of her love for nature and her friends. For me, they’ve always been an example of how to be an artist. Here’s a link to a few more of her cards.

And here’s one of the verses, our Winter Solstice message for you.

How shall I wish you strength?
A trees says “strength” so silently.
How shall I wish you joy?
A bird sings joy and needs no words.
How shall I wish you peace,
When snow breathes peace so perfectly?
Yet these are the gifts I wish to you
At Christmas time.
And in the year to come.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry and Nancy Cherry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.