Genevieve

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Holy night, holy night!
Peace on high held in the stars' yoke!
All—that ever the Light had broke,
Is rejoined now,
Both flesh and brow
Bleed sweetly in the red-dusk!

Bjelbog's Spear, Bjelbog's Spear
Sinks to the heart of the drunk earth,
Which—with a sign of holy mirth
A lone rose-bloom
Within the womb
Of the darkest desire dips.

Spotless bride, spotless bride!
Your sweet contrition—cover up,
When the full-filled wedding cup
Yet overflows.
Thus also goes
Into the fierce Night the Day!”
― Clemens Brentano

“I run on a thousand chandeliers, as each blade sparkles with frost; a river of glass underfoot. It is as though the elements are reversed: sky is ground and ground is sky, and I am running on the pinheads of constellations, leaping from star to frosted star.”
― Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, The Grassling

“Cinnamon, I realized, is the flavor equivalent of being hugged by your grandmother.”
― Mark Schatzker, The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor