The snow is fiercely beautiful in its silent demand that we abandon our restless, hurtling ways of moving too quickly through the moments, always racing elsewhere to there, rarely here.
Move too fast in hard falling snow and you are blinded, the tiny flakes combining themselves into a force that will not yield to man or machine, that will not give to haste, opening only to to deliberate shifts downward in our pace.
Move at the right speed, pacing yourself to a snowflake’s descent and you can move easily, can see the storm in its crystalline parts of intricate delicacy and infinite variety.
The snow holds you back from reckless expenditures of time, slows your feet, drags your gaze from the horizon, now gone, absorbed, swallowed whole in a white gulp. The snow holds you to this moment where the air is crisp and everything – man, tree, dog, field – is outlined in white, dusted in light so that you cannot miss the meaning.
“Be here, now,” a message sent in a flurry of whispers so soft your own heartbeat, your own breath can drown them out unless you still yourself and join the swirl of life and listen.
