After a glorious fall, we have been plunged into a deep chill and I seem to be obsessed with creating scenes of dense cold.

Here, the trees are so frozen over that the bark is just white, smooth, and coated with ice from top to bottom. Snow covers the ground. Most limbs are entirely barren. In the background, we see charcoal grays and hints of living brown.

It brings back memories of times I’ve been in the cold – in real life and in dreams. There was the (real) trek in falling darkness as I trudged through thigh-deep snow in Colorado to an event. The promised last bus never came. And there are the perennial dreams of being in remote places, not knowing exactly what lies ahead.

That’s what this landscape feels like. We cannot see clearly through the trees. We are apprehensive and cold – and walking into nightfall.

It looks to me just like this snippet from T S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi."

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.