I see the light.
That’s right. The ‘magic light’ that travels from the sun 93 million miles through ‘space’ and supplies an ‘energy’ to plants which in turn then support every living animal and human on this planet. Is that not amazing? Is that not magic? Or is that science?
Travels 93 million miles and still has enough power to feed this entire planet? And we think we can control that? Am I missing something?
…fresh, just fallen, inches deep and fluffy.
But not the hoar. Frost…and from the distance it can deceive.
Snow is soft. Frost is hard. Tell me again the difference between black and white?
Has the hoar frost visited thee and not me?
…goes a long way. Especially this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Northern Hemisphere?
After the joy of the first fluffy snows, I find a certain, almost enbalming, dreariness in gardens before any sign of snow drops or aconites. Everything is gray and dank.
That was yesterday, after my physio at the hospital, as I walked home. Cheery did not enter my thoughts. Wind was cold. I zipped my coat up higher to protect my throat. Everything was wet. Melting piles of snow everywhere. All plants had suffered under the burdens of ice, slush and snow.
Unexpected discovery. Don’t give up hope. And even a little bit of fragrance.
They call it witch hazel. There are a bunch of them around the world in the Genus Hamamelis. Got its common name from its use by water witchers. Lots of medicinal uses.
From first sight, it sparked hope in me.
Have you ever been where black forests white, only to feel winter pushing at the edge, unleashing colored dreams?
These are the forests of fairytales. Forests, where blacks and whites dissolve…into the always gray, always shady dreams…or do they?
Color or gray, dreams invariably have misty, shapeshifting edges where certainty and uncertainty jostle. And the fairytales? Were they once dreams, or…?
I couldn’t figure it out.
Forests, mountains and sky–somebody was doing some huffing and puffing.
In my last post, I referred to winter towns squeezed between the mountains and the lake at the shore line. Upon closer examination, they are not squeezed–they just fit. Like we’d all like to fit…and not be squeezed, not be forced.
I think, winter spring, summer or fall, I would have fun walking this village, don’t you agree?
Late December 2020 in the northern range of the Swiss Alps.
I crossed the line.
What? Which line?
Did I stop wearing a mask?
Did I stop supporting local populism?
Did I walk the wrong way on a one-way-street?
No.
I stopped seeing winter as cold, naked and heartless. I stopped seeing winter as death to be abhorred.
No leaves? No problem. No sun? No problem. Huge landscape? Big time. Mountains, sky, lake. Along the shoreline in the middle ground and background, the big landscape squeezes three towns into mere nothingness. And, by God, I saw beauty. I had crossed the line.
Clouds gently drift into and pause in places we humans can not easily access.
I’d rather have my head in the clouds than my face in the mask.
What is freedom? What is science? What is clear? What is certain?
I think I can see the future.
Or, have I confused the forest with the trees?
Or, the trees with the forest?
Are we there yet? Have we made it through the clouds, through the forest?
…virgin? Take your pick.
This landscape has been labelled, the Jungfrau Region. The Jungfrau is the virgin. I see it differently. These are the Three Kings.
Mountain peaks from left to right, Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.
Snow = Water. Water = King.
But what I like most about this photo is the foreground. On the top of the center foreground hill, see below, is a place to have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie while enjoying unrestricted visual access to the Kings.
Look carefully in the right center background to see the Jungfraujoch Observatory at 3,400 meters above sea level.
