“I walked on, talking in my head. In all the miles no silence lived. Inside my thoughts, I realized finally that, more than in wind or cold or Breakup, the power and absoluteness of wild earth resided in its huge uncompromising silence.”
-Seth Kantner (from my favorite book of this year, Ordinary Wolves)
Tag Archives: snow
Walking on Clouds
“When there’s snow on the ground
I like to pretend I’m walking on clouds.”
-Takayuki Ikkaku
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or
usher in storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
-Rabindranath Tagore
“You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Kindness is Like Snow
“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
—John Muir.
“Kindness is like snow –
It beautifies everything it covers.”
-Kahlil Gibran
Sweet Solstice
December 21.
Breathing in, the earth surrenders to the shortest day of sun’s light, and the longest dark of night. The wave of light and darkness crests and the sun is welcomed back. Its journey is lengthened each day.
Honoring the earth’s process brings beauty and attention. Deep comfort is found in the unfolding of the unending seasons. The lovely flow carries us, and each day we absorb more of the increasing light.
These gifts of winter solstice are here to be freely embraced.
What precious gifts nature gives.
As The Day Moves Into Night
As this serene and majestic winter day winds into the night, I am absorbed with the simple luxury of watching the sun’s colors paint the evening sky. What better to be doing than this?
Still I will have time for more books, snow walks in the twilight, contemplation, before rest. I will wish for more before sleep…
The world is so grand in its offerings!
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.”
~John Burroughs
The World in White
These snow days are sweet with wonder. The white carpet ensconces us warmly, allowing a deep simmering. The simmering distills to peace.
A soul distilled from simmering shimmers with radiance reflecting the peace within.
Sweet, soft glow across the snow. Oneness of white.
Time stills.
“There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.” – Joseph Wood Krutch
“Lo. sifted through the winds that blow, Down comes the soft and silent snow, White petals from the flowers that grow In the cold atmosphere.” -George W. Bungay
A Magical Event
“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”
– J. B. Priestley
Holding on to Winter
It snowed all day today, March 10th.
This event was met with dismay by every other human that I know – but not by me!
Why can’t I get enough snow? I’m not ready for winter to be over…
(I haven’t said this out loud to any other person).
The writer, Rick Bass
understands what snow can mean, does mean, to this human be-ing (me). I was reading his Winter (notes from Montana) this afternoon as the big flakes fell steadily and silently down.
Continually. Rhythmically. Silently. Magically.
Bass writes from his perspective as a native Texan of his first Montana winter and his immersion in snow:
“I’ll never get used to snow – how slowly it comes down, how the world seems to slow down, how time slows… I don’t mind the cold. The beauty is worth it”.
“I watch individual flakes; I peer up through the snow and see the blank infinity from which it comes; I listen to the special silence it creates.”
“I stand outside in the snow for long periods of time, in the middle of it, looking out: I cannot believe I am so rich, getting all this snow…. Everything’s so quiet.”
“It’s more like an afterlife. I never dreamed I would live in a hard country away from people, with such quietness.”
Re-reading, then typing his words, helps me to understand why I’m hanging on to winter and to snow. I crave more of that special silence, that feeling of richness, that comes in the sweetness of falling flakes and under the snow blanket they create. Even with the slowing of time, the season went so quickly, too fast.
Spring will come and I will relish the unearthing and the rebirth all ‘round. But not yet. For a few more days let me feel all the depth, serenity and solitude of winter.
100 Names for Snow
One Hundred Names for Snow
I’ve read that the Eskimos have more than one hundred names for snow. The Native Hawaiians have dozens of names for rainbows…..aren’t both of these facts lovely?
Snow and rainbows are so vital and important in their beauty and 
meaning to these cultures that the people’s awareness of the subtle nuances in each flake, or storm, or misty bow of light, creates minute distinctions. That is sweet breathing into the moment of awareness. That is absorbing yourself in the wonder.
In northwest Montana we have myriad types of snow. The sweetness and peacefulness of snowfall and the aftermath of serenity are wondrous to me. I never get tired of snow. I certainly appreciate how having the snow lay its beauty down in all this space under the big sky contributes greatly to its gorgeousness. (Not so fun when it’s compacted into cities where plows and car exhaust quickly make it a burden and an ugly nuisance).
But not so here.
With the short days of winter, abundant fires in the hearth, and full days of snowfall, introspection comes easily.
This is the time of inner workings.
Miraculous growth can grace you in a molecular moment.
Being instead of doing. Allowing instead of trying.
Here are a few of my names for snow:
Snow Globe: Just like you’ve shaken a tiny globe of flakes, this continuous swirl is absorbing and consuming.
Showering: Like rain, the snow comes in a constant, powerful stream.
Wonder Flakes: These are those huge snowflakes, softly and slowly falling, beautifully absorbing.
Fairy Dust: Tiny, sweet whispers of snow crystals. Like being sprinkled with fairy dust.
Powdered Sugar: Dry, soft, quietly falling from a white sky.
Crystalized Magic: An icy sweet mist. When a sun shaft hits these airborne mist pellets it creates rainbows everywhere.
Pebbles: The weatherman would call it gropple. A little like snow hail, it’s icy and substantial. You can hear this one falling.
Popcorn: Large and soft, like pieces of styrofoam falling and leaving a quick layer over everything.
Baby Powder: A talcum grace covering you with magic.
What would you name in a myriad of ways, seeing all of its preciousness?
