Let There Be Light (and Color!) in Late January

I tend to think of January as bleak and dreary.  I've always wished that Christmas came in February, late February, so that we had some sparkly lights and special decorations to brighten our January and February. 

As I've been looking through my pictures, I'm surprised by how many pictures I take simply because I like the colors and the light. 

Even when a picture comes out fuzzy, I like to keep it, because I like the way the colors blend and blur.

Even shots of metal (below, the pipes of a pipe organ) can give my eyes a jolt of light.

I like the gleaming metal beside the more organic flowers below (and yes, scientist friends, I understand that metal, too, is organic).

Glass is a great conductor of light:

Can you find the cross in the picture below?

At our April 2011 Create in Me retreat, our group project was filling a cross with broken objects, which fit with the theme of "Broken, but Beautiful."  The cross now lives by the outdoor labyrinth:

Close up photos of the cross yield interesting pictures of light and color:

In the picture below, can you see the leaves and trees?

At an earlier Create in Me retreat, our group project was creating mosaics on windows outside of the main office:

Mosaics often reflect light in intriguing ways, even more so when lit from the back:

Soon the sun will return to us; until then, we have to make our own light.