Well, it's winter.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

Anyway, the days have grown very short but in these days in the month past solstice we have the rare opportunity of seeing the sunrise on every lucid morning. I get up at 6 and go to the bus stop at 6:55 AM each day, and that just so happens to coincide with the length of the night so that walking to the stop, or whilst riding the bus, outside the sun just happens to be rising.

Several weeks ago I had the rare opportunity of seeing the sun rise in one hemisphere and the moon set in the other: it was a beautiful spectacle, the moon was large and yellow in the still dim sky while the sun just flooded the other half of the sky with pinks and purples.

Today I had an even rarer opportunity: I heard it before that as the sunlight filtered through our atmosphere rises up the spectrum of colors, from reds and oranges at the moment of sunrise to a clear blue illuminating the whole sky during the day, there are some seconds of green in between, which makes sense, green is between orange and blue.

So I'm riding the bus in the cool (or, one could argue, absolutely freezing) morning air, we're just pulling away from our stop, and I glance out the window and there, in the sky, the clouds are washed with a brilliant green color, the color of a leaf held to the sunlight.

And for those few seconds before the bus rounds the corner, I see the green flash in the sky, almost magical.

And the bus turns, and my back is facing the sunrise, and no matter how I strain I cannot catch another glimpse until the color is long gone and the blue of our sky is returning.

Later on today the first real snow of the winter fell; not the five-minute one earlier in the season, but a geniune snow that is still falling even as I type this.

Nature truly is a realm of mystery and wonder, full of brilliant images and memorable seasons.

I hope she will last forever.