My Winter Ritual of Lights

See my garden. The garden is my ritual de la habitual all year long. I've been tending this garden since 2021. I absolutely love this garden and I love everything about gardening. Winter is no different to me than the other seasons. All four seasons are equal to me. In my garden, I pay homage to each season with different sections of my garden. I designed it that way from day one. Winter has its very own section, which I have shown you in the photograph above.

In the past, I learned how to celebrate the winter holidays with my mother and family. She was crazy about Christmas and the whole family was very traditional about Thanksgiving Day. From Thanksgiving Day to Christmas Day, the family that raised me had certain rituals and traditions that we expected and were expected to participate in year after year. Most of the time, I thought it was beautiful and lovely, and I appreciated how my mother and the others made that time special.

Mom has been gone since 2013. I tried to carry on her traditions with my first husband, but it never really had the spark or pizazz or even the gratitude of the winters before she passed on. I blamed myself for a long time, thinking that I had spent foolishly, or that I just couldn't be as magical as she was about those holidays; But I think I was probably too hard on myself. I didn't realize that I didn't have to be exactly like her. The harder I tried to be exactly like her, the more I disappointed myself.

When I began gardening in 2021, I was in full-charge. I designed the whole thing and came up with the Seasonal Theme from day one to be my guide. I started with the Spring Section (kind of like Vivaldi's composition "The Four Seasons") and I was very proud of myself for the first face of Spring. As the seasons passed, and the years passed, bringing me to 2025, I've watched the backyard garden change looks and faces multiple times, with my caring heart and artistic contributions working with nature and weather together in a wonderful, spiritual ritual that I enjoy immensely. I can never decide whether I want to call it "Peace Garden" or "Serenity Garden" because that is how I feel back there. I feel proud and safe and content. I feel all the love inside of me that I deny or fearfully reject everywhere else I go. In "The Four Seasons" Garden I know love and peace and harmony. The whole world can fall apart, but there in the garden everything is alright.

October and November are considered Autumn and I decorated that section festively to honor Halloween and Thanksgiving. As I move on to the Winter Section, my winter ritual is highlighted - literally and figuritively. LIGHTS! I've always had a strong sensitivity to light and sound. Nature calms me because I love natural sound. Lights speak to me in a language many people are unaccustomed to speaking. The blinking lights speak faster than the amber lights. The white lights speak louder than the purple or red lights. The fire light speaks in a totally different tone than the electric or solar lights. It's a glorious symphony of light language and though you can not see the lights that I've adorned the garden and winter with, in the photograph I'm sharing above --- In the evening, the lights do all the talking.

For the winter section, thus far there are three sets of different lights. The Christmas lights near Santa Claus have various colors and they blink. The fire pit when sparked and burning wood has a lovely fire light and smoke effect. The three red tulips displayed in the January/February section all light up and glow proudly at night.

I know that there are many festivals of lights for the winter holiday traditionalists. I've made my own in "The Four Seasons" garden.