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| Someone's Late Winter Wand. Oh, how this strange light & snow draw the eye to places unnoticed. |
10:45 pm, April 18. I am sorting images in bed. I find myself astonished at how light it is outside. When did this Sun-thing happen? The all-knowing, data-oozing, cyborg-phone tells me that the sunset was at 9:30, but had I been insane enough to sit in the cold, I could have easily read a book out of doors for an hour beyond that time.
Assorted cues are telling me that Spring may actually be in the process of springing, although here I think it snaps. I don't know this Place in this season, so I cannot be certain. Abdicating my snowbird status & enduring this Winter from its early beginning to its painfully late end, I believe I am allowed to exchange my "Cheechako" badge for some kind of "Sourdough" status. As I do not care much for labels, I will be satisfied with direct Sunlight on my face every day & retiring my pillbox hat, thank you.
So here is this Sun, returning with a vengeance. Rising before 6:30 am, it will set fifteen hours later. Already. But the snow persists, enough so that when I make the (admittedly repeated) mistake of straying from the security of the groomed trail surface I will sink to to above my knees, often to my crotch. It is moments like these, clumsily flopping & wading about, hoisting myself back upon the the trail, when I am reminded why the Moose have such long legs. If I had their legs, I would have some amazing photographs. But, I digress. The Sun, combined with the lingering snow creates this weird light & hypnotic shadows. Try as I might, I cannot effectively capture the atmosphere with the camera.
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| Strange light, strange lines I cannot capture. |
This strange dance of light & shadow is particularly mesmerizing in the Ice. I am certain, were I to remain for more than a long moment, that these places would share visions -- spontaneous scrying surfaces of Place.
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| Late Winter lines & shadows, trees & Ice. |
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| Late Winter scrying surfaces: what do the shadows reveal? |
And although in my tending to small persons, I neglect the opportunity to stop for visions in this world of light & shadow, I do find that so many things gone unnoticed are suddenly revealed. The strange contrasts bring them to the forefront.
Frosty meanderings of critters rarely seen in the green months:
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| Small mammal tracks. Did they make them in the Moonlight? |
The steadfast snow-resistance of certain plants -- usually obscured in the dense summer foliage -- offers them a showcase:
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| Light & Shadow draw the eye... |
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| "Weedy" charms of the undergrowth rise to prominence. |
It all makes me regret not purchasing that book about Winter grass & weedy plant identification...
Cast it away, regret is a wasteful emotion. Besides, I have survived... & none too soon. In these last few weeks I have felt the Dogs of Depression nipping at my heels, raising both my bitch-factor & my aptitude for snark by several degrees. It is with hope & gratitude that I welcome back this strange & increasingly persistent Light. Seek, hunt, soar in pure freedom, in the warmth of this great Light -- that was the reminder offered by a bald eagle circling the house yesterday. "Turn your face to the Sun & the Shadows fall behind you." I have always loved that saying, despite its obfuscated origins (is it Maori, Chinese, Whitman, Whitton, or otherwise?), so this is what I shall do. Turn my face to this strange & emergent Light. I have nothing against the shadows, but enough is indisputably enough, thank you.
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| Winter Wanes: Turning my face to a strange Light. (Rose coloured glasses help too.) |
Time to make updates to the (Alaskan) Wheel of the Year.
7 comments:
we too emerge from a long sleep of darkness. this long winter tearing at our spirit so that when the buds broke and birds returned we blinked like we had never seen them before. Beginners mind this spring. Now down the mountain the magnolias and forsythia are in full glory, but ours are just barely showing bit of color or promise. And yet the greenness abounds for us, and we laugh giggly each time we step outside, blinking. up at 5:30 this morning, no longer night but before the sun, and stretching outside on the deck with the stream rushing cold. Springtime will come and also summer. and so it goes.
First of all, you have wicked beautiful face! And I love your hat ;-)
Now to that "Late Winter lines & shadows, trees & Ice" Oh, my sweet gods! Had I been anywhere near that spot, I would have probably jumped in it. Cold be damn! What an amazing place.
Magaly,
Ah, lovely one, I take your compliment & run with it.
As for the hat, for nearly 20 years now that fuzzy thing has followed me across the country, East, West, North, South. People look at me strangely when I wear it, which is quite often. Perhaps it looks like a slain muppet?
If you take up ice-scrying, you let me know. I'll give you the tour. ;)
"...we blinked like we had never seen them before." So much the same we are.
naomi,
you flatterer. :P
actually, overexposure can do wonders for the complexion & i am really not so lofty as to have resisted ear piercing, i just lost all my diamonds *cry*. but you are correct, i was working on optimism which is something of a challenge right now.
it was kind of a risk -- real or imagined -- to picture myself here. i haven't fully figured out what that is all about.
thank you for the comment & i am so pleased i finally figured out how to get your blog into my reader -- such a welcome addition.
As a grown woman who has never had her ears pierced, the idea that it somehow conveys nobility is the coolest thing I have read all day. Thank you!
Although truthfully, it is simply because my parents didn't expect it (or forcibly get it done), combined with the fact that I never think about earrings until I see a really awesome dangly pair and then I desperately want to run off to a piercing parlor for about five minutes and then I read something about not getting to wear dangly earrings for SIX MONTHS or something crazy like that and then the mood passes because I don't ever notice studs and I forget about earrings again for another year or two. And so the cycle continues. I don't have the attention span for long-term, patience requiring cosmetic commitments, or something.
my parents didn't let me pierce mine for what seemed to me to be forever. of course, it was the 80's, so i wasn't satisfied with the two they had professionally done, so i went & added more with an embroidery needle. looking back, all i can think is, gah.
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