The storm is here.
It arrived softly, slowly, with none of the fury forecast: small delicate flakes in hesitant flurries, enough to dust the ground overnight.
Now, the whirlwind is here.
The aspens and evergreens and red willow sway in a slow cold dance, their movements dictated by a horizontal wind hard from the southwest. It drives the snow before it, now mixed with sleet in pellets large enough to be called hail, breath and spittle of a raging storm now punctuated by outbursts of thunder.
The world is white, sky, air, earth, all three, and nothing else visible much beyond the window.
It is a day for sheltering within, beyond reach of the elements.
At dawn, the snow still came from the east, wending its way gently through and among the mountains to touch the land here below. The peaks themselves were mostly invisible, shrouded in a white blanket. Now, though, the winds have spun, spiraling around to face the mountains once again, gathering the speed and force that will be needed for the campaign to send the flakes driving over the peaks and on beyond our small world here. Some of their number will stay behind, choosing to live out their short lives in this place, perhaps calculating, correctly, that they will enjoy a much longer existence in the chill air of the higher elevations.
The storm is late, and yet it is entirely on time. The original forecast was for late Sunday into Monday, revised several days ago to arrive Saturday. By that measure, it is two days late, and yet, the elements are never late: They arrive in their own good time, according to their own schedule, one older and perhaps wiser than any humankind can conceive. It means, of course, that we mortals must adjust our plans, errands delayed and appointments canceled. It’s hubris, a foolhardy challenge and a dare to forces far more powerful than we, to wander about too openly in such weather. We will not, of course, be afforded the maximum prediction of two and a half feet of new snow; at the moment, for all the sound and fury, it appears that it will be measured in inches. That could change, and likely will — before the weather moves beyond us sometime tomorrow, it might leave up to a foot here on the land.
And so today will be spent mostly indoors on other tasks, watching the winds spend themselves of their fury while we wait. They will tire soon enough. By sometime tomorrow, the cliff face of El Salto, what I call The Old Man, will be visible once again, garbed in winter dress as he is in the image above.
The Old Man has been here longer than any human, longer even than the animals and the trees that stand upon his shoulders. He has seen storms come and go, those of the natural world and those made by mortal hands. They all eventually spin themselves out, yet he remains, a silent witness to it all — at peace with what is, irrespective of what chooses to come, to stay, to depart.
That essence of his spirit, manifest in solid body and craggy mien, is perhaps what gave rise to the image’s name: Peace. It is the tranquility that comes with timelessness, the serenity that comes with existence on an epic and epochal scale, the sure and certain knowledge that one will survive whatever comes, over a lifetime so long as to be, in any sense comprehensible to the world itself, eternity.
On this first day of the year’s shortest month, that mark on the calendar that reminds us all too well of the ephemeral nature of our lives, we could do worse than to look to The Old Man. He reminds us that life’s sacred hoop transcends such fleeting storms: as a piece, and a peace, in a larger a whole.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
