This morning I dip my nose into the soft white petals of narcissus flowers. The scent merges with the smell of pine, and I remember a book my children and I enjoyed, a scratch and sniff book filled with smells at Christmas. Scratching and sniffing brought smells of candy canes, pine, cedar, cocoa, gingerbread, and an orange in the foot of a stocking into the house. I sit with that, scratch and sniff memories, children young, children grown. I am especially aware right now. What is it that brings the senses to life? What touches us? I was reading yesterday that people who love this season have a different brain than those who are in a more bah humbug or Scrooge sort of mood. Who knows what influences us but this morning I woke up with the song "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" vibrating my heart. I love this time of year, the red and green, white for those with snow, stockings, candles, firelight. This weekend I'll make Yule logs. I gather greens from our yard, melt white candles, and drip the wax over the log like snow. A red ribbon augments the green leaves and needles and red berries. We have had rain this morning, soft and gentle rain, and now the gray is lit as though with a wand glazing pink through the fog. The glow is gold. I pause and beckon the wings of inner light. Perhaps I feel so good this time of year because I inhale deeply all the wonderful scents and all that is sent to sense. I am aware. I am awake. Gratitude fills me and spins me like a top. I am the star on top of the tree, the lights, the dark.