Far less snow is visible on El Salto on this day than in the photo, but unlike last year, there is snow.
The drought that has held this land so firmly in its grip has altered not merely weather and climate, but perception and memory, as well. Snow seems suddenly a novelty, something remarkable, when in fact it should be the norm at this time of year.
And this is the danger of great upheaval, in climate or otherwise: We have begun to lose the thread of history, and with it, conceptions of the future as it was meant to be.
The seasons provide the blueprint, or at least they should. Now, though, rhyme and reason alike have departed, along with any sense of normalcy or confidence in what is to come.
The dominant culture marks year and season differently. There is an arbitrariness to it, an insistence on comporting with dates selected to conform not to the Earth herself, nor even entirely to the light, but to the doctrine and dogma of a colonizing conversionist cult. Any coincidence with more cosmic laws is convenient, but not necessary.
And this is the root of the problem, at least one of them, anyway: Imposing artificial superstructure upon the natural infrastructure of the universe has concealed reality from view, perhaps, but it cannot prevent the consequences of abusing that reality. Our minds may adapt to changes so rapidly as to convince ourselves that they are not changes at all, but merely the way things have always been . . . but the world knows better, and we shall have to deal it one way or another.
Here, it’s easy to believe in a sentient world, one that sees and knows and remembers more than the whole sum of human knowledge. The mountains know more than we can dream, or even guess. And like the rest of this old Earth, they know that while the outside world believes that birth is the province of spring, the new world is a world conceived in winter, at the dawn of the real new year.
On this day, there may be precious little snow dotting the crags and slopes, but the winds are cold and the air is sharp. There is no question now that autumn has been left behind — or perhaps more accurately, it has left us behind to face, alone, the coming of winter on its own inexorable terms.
We are not, of course, alone, although in the long cold dark of the season it may feel as though we are. But the spirits have never abandoned us; desertion always runs the other direction. And here, we are blessed with the stability and steadfastness of the mountains’ embrace, these great spirits of the Earth herself whose presence here is near as old as time and almost as wise. They have seen the birth of each new year, each new world, each new chance to recreate the cosmos and ourselves with it. They know the gifts of the snow, of what grows even in the cold and the dark. They know, too, that such renewal is not mere prospect, but promise.
Next year’s may be a world conceived in winter, but we have the chance to make it one conceived in wisdom, too.
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