The Snow Is Snowing

 

The snow is snowing, which it’s supposed to do in February here in Western NY.  It is a kind of lovely snowfall, full and white flakes determined to cover the ground and the trees, the bushes, sidewalks and rooftops.  If you venture to go for a walk, it will gladly cover you, too.

There is a Zen saying I recently read:  "The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place."

As I went searching for the originator of that statement, I came across the following from a blog site by Jane Goodwin:  http://www.janegoodwin.net

These were a few favorite statements I liked about snow:

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand … and melting like a snowflake.  Let us use it before it is too late. — Marie Beynon Ray

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories. –From the movie An Affair to Remember

Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the snowflakes fall, each one a gem. — William Hamilton Gibson

The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn who it touches.   e e cummings

As the snow continues to fall outside my window today, there is a kind of melancholia that overcomes me.  Perhaps it’s memories of days gone by when I could actually “play” in the snow, full-snow-suited-up and not worrying one bit about frostbite.  Perhaps it is remembering that snow-shoeing trek I took a few years back with Pack, Paddle & Ski up in the Candice Hills and realized that it’s far easier to be at the end of the line of “walkers” than at the beginning.  Although I must say that being at the beginning of the line allows for one to view the forest untouched, blanketed white and shimmering with a kind of magical glow.  And you are the only one whose foot will touch the top of that white crest for that one moment in time.

As I bring my thoughts back into the “now”, and simply watch the snow fall, the melancholia drifts away.  The author who wrote “The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place,” took the time to be in the “now” of that moment, not past, not future, and saw how the snowflakes fell one on one in their appropriate places.  All in all, it is only this moment in time that gives the greatest meaning to my life.