The feeling could be the simple (but indescribable) pleasure that comes of looking at wide expanses of snow punctuated by rocks, trees and hills, nary a building in sight. It could be Zen notions of emptiness and impermanence (anicca), stirred up by the song the north wind sings as it scours the hills, sculpting random waves and abstract shapes as it passes. It could be an unexpressed desire for longing for order and containment, the vague and inchoate yearning for the realms that always seem to beckon beyond summits and slopes and snowy evergreens. It could be the deep, inky shadows that lie over and around everything.
In winter, the eastern Ontario highlands reveal themselves to an intrepid wanderer as they do at no other time during the year. One can trace the rocky bones with her eyes, feel the earth's peaceful sleep and share its slow dreams, sometimes even glimpse the shape of the springtime to come (although spring seems far away on such a day as this). There is music in the wind, and there are astonishing swaths of color in the snow and shadows. Who knew that blue came in so many entrancing shades?
Whatever the feeling is, it leaves me breathless, every single time.
3 comments:
Breathless is good, just keep on breathing. We're enjoying the cold today, but no snow (yet). Maybe this is it for the weekend.
"...A vague and inchoate yearning for the realms that always seem to beckon beyond summits and slopes and snowy evergreens..." So lovely to read this, this morning....
Poetry in every gaze here…. Thank you once again!
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