the small assurance that what is whole is still whole...

Today, once again, a light snow is falling. We can safely say that winter is truly here, as each day brings a bit more snow and the temperature will not climb beyond 30F for the next few weeks. I know that not everyone loves falling snow. Oh, perhaps they can savor it from a distance - or appreciate it's beauty in a film - but so many have moved away from north country because they hate the cold and the snow. I have come to cherish the whole experience as sensually clarifying. There is silence and cleansing in the snow, obscured vision along with an invitation to take care, too. I still hate driving long distances in a relentless snow storm, but while still in town with no place to go, I appreciate the snow's call to slow down and pay attention. It awakens me to the nuances of the day.

On Saturday morning, we woke to four inches of new snow that showed up over night. It was a surprise. Sadly, the sky soon turned to sleet and the purity of that surprise became a freezing mush that had to be cleared. And, damn, if those four inches didn't quickly become a heavy, sloppy mess that strained our backs. I felt the legacy of that storm yesterday while shoveling two new inches from the deck and driveway. I kept thinking, "There's nothing like aching arthritis to remind you of your mortality." I was grateful that today's coating was refreshingly light - even as it continues to fall gently.

Like many physical tasks - washing dishes, sweeping floors, scouring toilets - I find that shoveling snow often takes me into prayer. Not liturgical prayer, mind you, but the quiet awareness of once random thoughts making connections with their kin. Yesterday, Carrie Newcomer posted this on her Speed of Soul site:

The snow is coming down in enormous fluffy flakes. I lift up my purple mittens to catch a few on the back of my hand. Even with the naked eye I can see each crystal wheel with their individual arms and legs of ice. There is a solitary stillness in the ravine back by the creek and few sounds beyond the occasional hammering of a pileated woodpecker and intrepid jingle of my dog's collar tags. It is so quiet I can hear the soft hissing sound of those large flakes landing on the tree branches and forest floor. It is that still. It is in these quiet moments that I sense the expansiveness of time beyond my own life. I sense there is an abiding wellness even in these bruised and troubled times. What is whole is still whole. What runs deep still runs deep. Even our troubles seem transient when the falling snow lands on the ground like the most tender kiss - and you are truly there to hear it.

She taps into what I have come to trust, too: the presence of a small but salvific assurance that "what is whole is still whole." I felt this while walking with my children and grandchildren on Sunday as well. For three hours we hiked through the woods and fields of Poet's Walk along the Hudson River. Anna loved "drawing pictures" in the md with her new boots. Louie and I marveled at the way water runs to the lowest point in a meadow to pond into pools of fragile ice resembling ancient panes of glass. The adults rejoiced in being together. We spoke of how the pandemic has been exhausting but clarifying, too: a simple walk in the woods is now filled with blessings. As we were schlepping back through the woods to our cars at twilight, barely able to see one another as the light fled into the night, our daughter mused that "it's been at least a decade since I walked through the woods at sunset." Me, too, I realized and and drifted back to something the late Macrina Wiederkehr wrote that I caught my eye earlier that morning:

Slowly
She celebrated the sacrament of
Letting Go…
First she surrendered her Green
Then the Orange, yellow, and Red…
Finally she let go of her Brown…
Shedding her last leaf
She stood empty and silent, stripped bare
Leaning against the sky she began her vigil of trust…
Shedding her last leaf
She watched its journey to the ground…
She stood in silence,
Wearing the color of emptiness
Her branches wondering:
How do you give shade, with so much gone?
And then, the sacrament of waiting began
The sunrise and sunset watched with
Tenderness, clothing her with silhouettes
They kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her vulnerability
her dependence and need
her emptiness
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening she stood in silence and celebrated
the sacrament of waiting.

Within the quiet assurance of sacred nature, among those I adore most dearly, in a gentle flurry of quiet snow, I let go of my fretting for a spell - and slept like a child again that night.