SNOW -  RARE RECENT BEAUTY...

SNOW - RARE RECENT BEAUTY...

It is quite a rare occurrence to have a significant snow storm on our Island… We have recently had several! The first one, shown above, collected on more lively vegetation.

I am not usually a fan of the stuff, having left the blizzards of the Midwest many decades ago to choose more benign climates. I do have memories of wonder & delight in early childhood of enormous drifts reaching the eaves of windswept farm buildings, making for adventurous sledding possibilities, but soon enough I matured to also learn its problematic aspects.

Still… it was beautiful several weeks ago!

Going to university in Denver brought me into contact with skiing. I was never tempted. As young adults, we siblings share numerous tales of trying to get home for Christmas… spending the holidays stranded in isolated motels.

Moving to Arizona took me away from most of such weather, but Sedona sits at an elevation high enough to occasionally experience dramatic & awesomely beautiful snowfall…in fact that I see Facebook postings just now from friends living there showing the Red Rocks sporting a similar layer of white!

Difficult to tell, but my aging memory suggests this to look like the base of Coffee Pot Rock from the area he lives in West Sedona…

I am stealing these photos from a friend’s Facebook to see if he reads my blog… I’ll let him know if he doesn’t catch me… He explains that it was taken from Jerome, with the San Francisco peaks, above Flagstaff on the horizon.

Now, our view, showing the palm carrying quite a load against the dark angry waters of the Puget Sound with Seattle across the way. The water in the foreground carries its own load of the clay eroded from our cliff, which fertilizes eel grass in the shallows which is essential shelter for the small salmon fry until they are big enough to take to sea, & mature for several years before returning to feed us in turn… the cycle of life continuous, frozen & not…

There are two varieties of palms which live in our zones, this is the Chinese windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) and we also have a Mediterranean fan palm (Chamaerops humilis)… both of which our friend Appleblossom gave to the Soundcliff garden many years ago. As you see it has grown to some 20+ feet over the 8 foot vegetable trellis, perched on the cliff’s edge.

In the north garden the snow curtains the deer fence along the road & clings to define the scallops of the trellis where the Mashua grows, both are salvaged fish netting… with the corner of metal bean trellis protruding. The snow illustrates the structure & sculpture of the garden with unusual definition!

The garden has numerous vertical supports for vining crops

The native wild cherry, which has been kneeling for years before I came along seems even more supplicant viewed from our upper window. The vertical of its “crutch” becomes more clearly a part of its glyph.

Stephen captured it better down at ground level…

Across the way the entire city is dealing with the same situation, although being snowbound in this view, with no need to do more than tend the fire & make dinner as usual, while feeling more indulgence to read, write & play digital… cycles!

I found fascination watching various bits of physics insulate in some places… while demonstrating solar gain in others.

The blessing of a requirement to enjoy doing ‘most absolutely nothing!

Absorbing the intelligence of new views!

While I recorded the bell hanging in a lower branch of the Manchurian apricot

Stephen’s new phone captured a broader overview… with the cloud of clay.

He also tended to observe the more fulsome & whimsical aspects…

Like this enticement to stay longer in bed!

As a holiday, we attended the Winter Faerie Gathering at Breitenbush, a five hour drive down then up into the mountains above Salem, Oregon. It has become an annual trek for us, snow or not, to join our brothers in delicious indulgence of rich fellowship, good food & support from ourselves & the community who capably continue to evolve making possible an all-weather experience of thermal warmth.

Once we got off the anomaly of the Island’s weather, Stephen had little difficulty driving. We intentionally go a day early so as to have the luxury of settling-into our cabin with an early dose of the lithium-laced waters. The meadow pools, the sweetest of steam saunas & a vegetarian dinner, joining the organic farmers whose conference closes just as our gathering begins. A sweetly creative overlapping of earthy energetics.

Still… it snowed nearly every day! The beauty continued as I reconciled changes of attitude.

Necessarily accepting what is… we are off-grid, unconnected… isolated in a bubble sheltering all good.

The lodge at night… enough of snow!

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