Faith, Folklore, and Friends

The air up there in the clouds  is very pure and fine,  bracing and delicious.  And why  shouldn't it be?  — it is the same the angels breathe.  ~Mark Twain 

The Port of New Orleans is not far from the French Quarter or the rest of downtown New Orleans.  There is a lot to see as cruisers leave the dock and head downstream to the Gulf of Mexico. We departed in the late afternoon. We watched the sun set as we meandered along the Mississippi, amazed at the houses lower than us on the other side of the levee. It takes a long time to navigate the eighty-plus miles between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, and we weren't even close when the sun disappeared.  The Mighty Mississippi can kill and destroy and change whatever gets in its path, but this day, it was a gentle, beautiful stream.

The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory. ~Gary Zukav