Dawn, ten days out from the Long Night, and our forecast has suddenly changed drastically. After days of insisting there was no chance of snow during that whole period, sometime around dusk last night the experts announced an 80% chance of snow for tonight.
We know better than to assume its accuracy until we see the snowflakes flying, but still, it’s cause for hope. And if such weather materializes, it will be cause for celebration.
Our last light dusting, a few days ago, was just enough to dampen the earth; by yesterday, all save the most shadowed areas had dried again to winter dust. Now, though, as dawn begins to break, the cloud cover hangs more heavily than in recent days, iron gray masses suspended from a blank pewter sky. Sunrise has given us stunning rose-colored bands to the north, a glowing spectrum of cobalt and violet and magenta cascading downslope behind the old cottonwood trees.
It’s a rather different view from the one shown above — faster-changing, and with any promise of snow still unrealized. As the reds fade, the clouds settle in to a banded blue-violet tinted with heavy gray, relegating what remains of the sun’s glow to thin swatches in the southern sky; the clear turquoise is entirely gone now.
Snow may be a reality for us after all.
This is perhaps the first year that nearly everyone we encounter has shared our eagerness for the snow. A summer without water will do that to you; in this place, even the most winter-averse have begun to realize the ramifications of real drought. Fields that only two or three years ago were irrigated, then still lush and green, were perforce allowed to go brown and burnt this year. The soil, usually a rich earthy consistency, has faded to the palest of browns, its texture that of ash.
Is we approach the end of the driest year in recent memory — where “recent” exceeds seventy years — we all look forward to the prospect of not merely a new year, but a new world, too, one in which a more familiarly balanced climate and weather and season return.
Here at Red Willow, the people know that such a world is born of snow and storm.
That is, indeed, one of the secrets of this place, high above sea level at the end of The Dragon’s Tail: Harsh extremes notwithstanding, the fertile lands and discrete seasons owe their existence in great measure to the powerful spirits of winter. Snow is as fundamental to life here as water, because indeed it is water, merely in a different form and shape — and it is the runoff from the snowpack, the melt that flows from the spring thaw, that keeps the land alive through the warmer months.
This year, we had precious little snowpack, and even less runoff. The thaw may have warmed the earth a bit, but there was virtually no snow to melt, and thus no water to flow, and we have all paid dearly for that.
This winter, however, holds out hope of a return to our more usual weather: We have had a few small storms already, indeed, more of them at an earlier date than is our norm. That is disquieting in its own way, a reminder of the havoc wrought by climate change, but in the aftermath of the last brutal year or two, no less welcome for that.
For the moment, the land lies silent in the early morning light, a soft gray veil above a quiet earth below. The air is not heavy, but it feels weighted, somehow, in the stillness behind the dawn. Here at Red Willow, this is Quiet Season, a time for the earth to rest . . . and wait.
Because here, this is the way the year ends, the way the world ends, in the shortest day and longest night: quiet, still, pregnant with anticipation. Because here, we know that the new world is born of snow and storm, and this silence is sacred, this stillness a gift.
Like the earth, we spend this day waiting . . . waiting, in the winter quiet.
~ Aji
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