With a title like that, your mind could have gone in dozens of different ways. What did you first think of when you read it? (Just being curious as to how our minds work.) I hope a lot of my titles and their following words get your brains involved. Now into it:
The beauty first. Since it is presently February in Michigan, we’ll take winter. I know, some of you are moaning…winter? beauty? the cold, the shoveling, the slippery driving, the getting stuck (it helps to know how to drive in it) – who wants to take winter?! Well, some people love winter and others have learned to live with it in a positive way (positive/negative – blog of two week’s ago), but we won’t get into the winter lovers today as this is already a {TANGENT ALERT!} I will get them now and then (tangents).
Winter. Freshly fallen snow ladening the branches of trees and molding itself over everything like a soft, velvety blanket on the earth. Gorgeous. Drifts of snow creating their own forced landscape. Picturesque. The silence that comes after a heavy snowfall buffers noises of falling objects and sparkles the landscape when the sun is allowed through the clouds. It is magical. It may be peaceful for some, possibly scary or claustrophobic or disturbing for others, depending where their minds are at. But always magical. Maybe it’s the sparkles. Then there’s the crisp air and the squeaks and other strange noises in the bitter cold temperatures. You know it’s really cold when the snow makes specific noises under feet and tires. Take the ice – after a full glazing of it covers the landscape, it looks like a fantasy, crystal land. Stunning. I expect ice fairies to show up. And did you know that there is not one snowflake identical to another? They are so intricately shaped – each one their own wee creation of beauty. Mother Nature is amazing.
Okay, I have to go there: another {TANGENT ALERT!}. I’ll try not to go too deep… Where did Mother Nature come in? In fact, 1266. The personification of nature was very popular in the Middle Ages. They chose “Mother” Nature (or Mother Earth) because of the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature. Different cultures, Greece, Rome, parts of Southeast Asia and Indigenous (native) American peoples, made her a goddess, while Middle Ages Christians did not see her as inclusive from everything else, but that she had been created by God – a part of the whole, so to speak. In the Algonquian legend she is also known as Nokomis, the Grandmother. I like that. Grandmothers are usually so much more benevolent than moms. They can afford to be. Of course, nature has its downside, which a grandmother will seldom have (right, grandmas?).
That brings us to the Power (or Horror) in my title. Have you ever read Jack London’s, “To Build a Fire”, a story about a man freezing to death? Creepy? Horror? Yes. The story makes you more careful about going out in the bitter cold though. [For interested readers: there are 2 versions of this story: 1902 and 1908. In the first version, the man survives and is wiser for the adventure. That’s my cup of tea – half full.] I’ve been out walking in temperatures so low that I felt it in my bones, and my eyeballs felt so cold I had to blink my eyelids often – long pause blinks. Wearing glasses helped, but it does give one pause to go out in it. The horror in the opposite would be walking through desert lands and dehydrating to death. For those in the northern states, it can be the ever-creeping darkness that brings on S.A.D. Then there are the storms. Snow storms, ice storms, thunderstorms, torrential rains, hurricanes, tornadoes... The power of Mother Nature is wondrous and dangerous. Major floods, power lines down, trees toppling onto houses and cars, and people getting caught in it, dying in any of these circumstances – and yes, people die in cold houses as well as in cold fields. Keep on eye on the elderly especially when the power goes out in the cold areas.
So, The Beauty and the Power (Horror) of It All. We can enjoy the tremendous beauty of it and let it feed our souls, while at the same time be respectful of the underlying reality of it. There are poisonous snakes in some of those beautiful grasses and wild animals in the vast, eye-catching forests. Be careful out there while you’re on your earthly journey, but be sure to take in the glory. Stop and smell the roses.
(Thank you, electric line repairers and emergency folks!!)
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