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First Snow — 2019
Thoughts From September’s Snowfall
Too soon. Always too soon. Not the snow, of course — it keeps its own time. It’s the reminder it brings, the pensive state it provokes and the difficult questions it asks:
What have you done while I was away? How did you use Summer’s warmth and energy? Did you use the time of growth for growing?
It makes statements as well. They are simple and poignant:
You are older now. Time has passed. Change is a perpetual state.
The first snow is an offering.
It’s Mother Nature offering a long drink to her flora, letting the heavy, water-laden snow saturate roots before the Earth’s surface freezes. It’s a new blanket wrapped around her fauna, teasing long furs out from underneath sleek summer coats. It’s the bell summoning hibernating species to a last meal before they lay down to rest.
Snow is a builder.
Its cumulative walls raise their insulated seclusion up around us, inside of which we slow and settle. Its broad flakes fall like the hands of nature’s clock.
Meals will become hotter and more caloric. Bedding will thicken, its added weight will press down with comforting force as we incubate in the lengthened spans of darkness. Our actions will become more directed, more purposeful and efficient.
External stimuli filled our minds and captured our attentions during the months of light and heat. Now begins the time for regeneration. It is time to return to one’s self and answer the snow’s questions.
