One thing that's delightful to read across religions, philosophies, and tales is the explanations we have written down for the natural world that surrounds us.
Sitting at my laptop on a grey January day in the Northern Hemisphere, the coal stove fired up, buds still rarer on the oak twigs outside the window, green bulbs beginning to form on the forsythia indoors and a hyacinth bursting into pale pink blossoms on the windowsill, of course looking at winter makes sense. And I'll also reach back further in time than I've done lately on this blog.
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| Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry Folio 1, verso: January ("A New Year's Day feast including Jean de Berry") by the Limbourg brothers (fl. 1402–1416) via Wikimedia Commons |
Pliny the Elder wrote in his Natural History:
