Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Descent


Looking out the kitchen window, waiting for the water to boil for my first coffee of the day, I watch the snow fall. And for some reason I see the snow, really see it, for the first time. I see the snow not as a collective force of cold and ice, but as individual flakes, crystal beauties descending like feathers from the sky. I watch one perfect flake make the last five feet of its long journey as it sways and circles among the many others. I watch two join together, finding each other, in the final inches of their lives.

I realize that the life span of a snow flake is measured in inches, not in minutes and I wonder if that would make a difference in how I experience life. That if instead of measuring my life span as one long horizon, I measured it as the vertical decline back to the yielding Earth that I come from. That if instead of dying, I descend and I do so as the snow flake; gently and gracefully returning to the body of my Mother; joining with others of my kind to blanket Her. What if “pure as the driven snow” referred to the manner in which I submit to the falling, the calling, for me to come home?

I imagine diving into life, arms wide open as I journey from the clouds, down into the vastness of mountains and rivers and rolling green hills, welcomed as I meet with a slumbering body that yearns for the silence I bring with me.

I visualize a perfect descent, swaying and circling among the many others, no two the same.