These last days have been the stuff of dreams.
No, I’m not referring to political dreams or nightmares; I’m referring to the world this season has produced for us here: ethereal, magical, mysterious, the stuff of medicine, the space of the spirits.
Today’s image is one that Wings captured almost exactly one year ago — November 20th, to be exact. It’s not especially unusual this time of year, although it is true that most of this month still finds itself devoted to utterly clear skies. But fall is dancing now with winter, and their union creates an otherworldly beauty, one of slate blue skies above an earth of amber flame. It’s as though the spirits have gilded the world in anticipation of winter holidays, spangled it and garlanded it with the last of the autumn light.
From their perspective, perhaps it’s intended as proof against the storm, knowing that humans tend to be a resentful lot when inconvenienced even slightly. More likely, it’s simply their own desire to show off the beauty of the very breath of life, of water and light wedded in anticipation of the world’s winter rebirth.
After a mostly clear dawn, the clouds have moved back in, and we have yet another morning of magic. at least for the moment. If the radar map is any indication, much of the weather has already spun out, although some patches of snowy blue still show on the screen. Here, though, on the ground, the entirety of the northern sky is a solid bank of snowclouds, extending around to try to embrace us on all sides and already moving overhead. The only real light that remains is a single wide band stretched across the southern horizon, slightly eerie and unquestionably haunting.
And so we, like our small world here, wait with bated breath, hoping for the first of the flakes that will stick, praying for enough for actual ground cover, unlike the few flurries of last night. We already know that the amounts will be small and unlikely to last; know, too, that by day’s end, the skies will once again look like those in the image above, a cold and brilliant setting the land aflame beneath a storm already departing for points east.
But we are grateful now for whatever we are granted. Drought — genuine drought, not a dry spell, not a little extra aridity, but the deadly 500-year drought that has had this land in its grip for far too long — will do that: It makes you appreciate even the smallest of gifts, makes you grateful for the slightest inconvenience the weather presents.
And it compels you to honor the magic.
The fierce winds of these last days have by now mostly stripped the trees bare. Even the aspens on the north side of the house, so long protected, are largely shriven of their leaves. The skeleton spirits of the aspens are silver, the globe willows gray . . . but the weeping willows have exchanged their flowing spirits for fire now. In fall, their fern-like leaves turn gold, but it’s hard to know that moment when the last leaf has fallen, for their upper branches are golden, too, like the arms of the sun stretched out beneath a slate-blue sky.
They shall, no doubt, return to full fiery form by day’s end.
This day is one filled with tasks already; even the moments I take to write this have already set me behind. But those moments that bookend the weather’s appearance are animated by an elemental magic.
No matter how busy the day may be, we shall take that time to acknowledge it, and to honor the spirits who have made us a gift of it.
~ Aji
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