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JINCHOGE RIFF

There at the heart of winter, there in the eye of ice when life is at its low, one day in a beard-frosting blizzard your snowsquint eyes are drawn to the flashing color of reddening buds: jinchoge (Daphne odora), heart-scarlet in a world of white, swelling even into this cold. Thereafter each time you pass that small green bush your heart reaches out for more of that bright truth, offered to all with hearts that reach: the solace that no matter the cold, the warmth is coming; no matter the death, life is returning; no matter the ice, passion is rising; once-dimmed pulses are growing in strength, budding from the seed of cold. You share the tension of this becoming, you have a part in this passion play, unfolding in Spring since first there were eyes that led to the heart. Thus it is each morning as you go out into the cold, and each night as you return, you gain in warmth and hope from those tiny quiet flames, nascent bouquets of fragrance you can nearly perceive, until one dawn that very perfume is on the air, and like the season itself you are more than you were...