Nature Journal: Snow
Winter can be a gloomy season. We watch the leaves fall off the trees in a kind of frenzied anticipation. The trees themselves seem to be excited about these events. The sky fills with a myriad of colors and a mixture of paint strokes. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to catch a vision of what it might mean to ‘paint with the colors of the wind’ at times such as these. In the end these colorful batches of Autumns long gone end up in brown piles on the ground. The trees that once stood in such regal glory crowned in the green of health, fertility, and renewal now stand naked, stripped to nothing but the dull grays of their bark. The animals flee; birds fly south; the insects hide. It seems nothing wants to stay here anyway. But here we are. We find ourselves stuck in this dying season around us because our jobs and our houses say so. Our pastoral depictions of a friendly Fall are quickly replaced by the looming projections of an apocalyptic Winter. For me at least, apocalyptic scenes of the environment are dominated by these visions of brown-leafless trees where we are deserted by the animals who have much more sense and find ourselves alone, facing the messes we’ve made.
I came home from my mission in the middle of March almost two years ago. Two years living in the beauties of a rain forest will do things to you. Beautiful, uplifting things. I didn’t come home to the evergreen blossoming of endless forests however. It was Winter. And it was brown, dull, and trees were few and far apart. But most of all it was depressing. And Winter can certainly be that way. At these times it can be hard to find the peaceful harmony described by the Pastoral. Only the danger of the Sublime and the threat of the Apocalypse in nature greet us. And I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t tend to be my favorite.
But something happens in Winter in this part of the world that doesn’t happen everywhere. Somewhere in the upper atmosphere, a speck of dust or a tiny ice crystal float among the chilled droplets of water making their way along their endless cyclical journeyings. And here, where temperatures are just right, these cooled droplets decide to get together with these specs in the most intricate and original of ways. As they do, a beautiful form of precipitation forms. The infant snowflakes make their way toward the earth, endlessly sculpted by the atmosphere and changing temperatures as they descend. All this happens without our knowledge until we either walk outside trying to catch the flakes on our tongues or wake up to find ourselves blanketed in a world of white.
There is something ratifying about snow in Winter. Nature is kind. She doesn’t leave us alone with the browns and the decays from a forgotten Fall. She decorates this strange world in memorable ways. Pastoral images of sledding, carriage rides, skiing, and snow-shoeing come to mind. Sublime terrors of blizzards and sheets of ice take over the dull boredom left over by the seasonal metamorphosis. And even our apocalyptic nightmares of dark futureless worlds are spiked with the wildness of cold and the stark contrast of fields of white. Snow comes with Winter. You knew it when you signed up. So what if it’s cold? Get out there and look at the transient beauty that only accompanies this season. I hear people all the time talk of ‘being sick of the snow’. I love it. It brings character to this period of inactivity. So these last few weeks as I walked out into the dancing snow, I couldn't have been happier.
“There were snow flurries in the air today
early for my liking, snow flurries coming
in small singular spirals, falling through the air
spun by their shapes, the tug of the wind
sitting in the office, watching them tumble
by my window, pause in the conversation with client
marvel for a moment at the ballet before me
forward scouts for their brethren to follow
later in the season when fall yields to winter
soon enough they will come, in legions”
early for my liking, snow flurries coming
in small singular spirals, falling through the air
spun by their shapes, the tug of the wind
sitting in the office, watching them tumble
by my window, pause in the conversation with client
marvel for a moment at the ballet before me
forward scouts for their brethren to follow
later in the season when fall yields to winter
soon enough they will come, in legions”
-Raymond Foss, Snow Flurries
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