The depths of winter, and the mercury rides high at fifty-four. It’s only midday; it will rise far higher before we’re done.
And yet, the colonial methods of forecasting insist simultaneously that there will be snow tomorrow, and also that there will be no snow tomorrow, only a few scattered clouds. The “special weather statement” predicts as much as half a foot at this elevation, but we know better than to bank on it.
The other irony is that said statement is worded as though six inches is in any way a major snowfall for this place. In a land where such storms were only a few short years ago measured in multiples of feet, such a description seems an insult to the spirits of winter in this place.
Of course, it’s only a fraction of the insult that colonialism is inflicting, in the form of both climate catastrophe and otherwise.
But those spirits of winter still inhabit this place, ancient, timeless, both higher-reaching and more deeply rooted than the human mind can conceive or comprehend. They have retreated, mostly, for this moment, whether merely biding their time or choosing to save their strength unclear to us. But they are here, and every now and again they elect to show themselves — give us a glimpse of their power and force, of winter in its elemental form.
We were visited in this space by representations of some of these forces yesterday, and I promised that today we would see an example of the one for which yesterday’s first featured work was named: Snowfire. No, it’s not a name recognized by any colonial meteorological or scientific authority; it’s merely our word for what happens at moments like the one Wings captured in the photo above, that moment as the storm begins to cede space to a setting sun, and its rays reach like flames through the still-falling snow to set the land ablaze in shades of gold and amber, copper and crimson.
Wings caught that shot at day’s end on the first day of the new calendar year in 2013. New year, yeas, but not a new work week; it was not a Monday, but a Tuesday, one of those years when the colonial method of holiday observance disrupts all usual societal patterns. For us, of course, it made no difference; all our work is here, and every day is like the next in that regard, for there are some tasks that can never be left to another day. For us, there are of course traditional observances, but holidays as the colonial world defines them are less about days off than they are about inhabiting the space of particular moments: of magic, of meditation, of mystery, of medicine.
Such was this moment, and in truth it lasted precious little longer than that. On that day, Wings captured a series of photos of sunset storm, perhaps twelve to sixteen images in total, all in the space of some five minutes. They beauty presented itself in the middle of our even chores, on a day at the end of a heavy snowfall when the mercury had already lunged near zero and was dropping fast. We had more work yet to do, but he was wise enough to drop everything just long enough to retrieve his camera and record the great gift with which the winter spirits had presented us.
There is much to fear from extremes of weather, especially now, when they are born of an Earth in crisis. But there is much to love, as well: much for which to be grateful, to acknowledge and honor. Winter in its elemental form has changed here, and will change more before it’s done, but the work of reclamation, renewal, and rebirth remains.
~ Aji
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