Sketch of Wat Lam Chang, Moonmuang, Soi 7, viewed from my window...

It's raining. (It was when I began. Now it's turned to snow!) Blessed life-giving rain. I lived the first third of my life under dreary skies much of the time, also beautiful sun-kissed days that ran for ever in my dreams, but now it's different. After almost thirty years in Alberta, in a particularly peculiar and endlessly interesting place, the lack of rain is the norm. Blessed are we who are fortunate to call this our home; crystal-clear air, sweeping heart-pounding grandeur of the Rockies, backed by blisteringly blue sky, girdled by endlessly morphing landscapes.

As the climate change progresses, changes here are dramatic. In the first ten years I could set my calendar by the winter weather  - New Year's Eve marked the change year after year. A cold clear New Year's Evening to end a cold clear Fall transformed into a raging blizzard leaving behind a New Morning layered with a new landscape of thick white snow. This seasonal blanketing buffered the land beneath, offering protection from the phenomenal Chinook winds blasting through this south-western corner of the province. Winds that whip the moisture from ground to air evaporating as it blows far, far away on the teeth of mighty gales in search of a distant solution. The percentage of water that makes it deep into the ground to feed the tall trees and deepest roots is only moderate. Flora and fauna hereabouts have species-specific idiosyncrasies unique for survival in our wild Alberta climate.

As the years pass and our winters become noticeably drier, the desertification of the landscape continues to creep onward with such subtle creativity that the vast majority of human doings fail to notice a thing.

Meanwhile, amid all angst or chaos, love reigns supreme. Call upon Rumi at times, call upon my inner bard at others.