I used to want two winters a year, but now that winter is so fickle, I am losing my trust in it. I am willing to trade in the two for just one good winter. I love the brilliant white when it snows; watching ice form and create mysterious humps and shapes, or crystalline patterns; and the glint of setting sun on the phenomenal transformation of liquid to solid.
But how are we going to cut ice blocks to store for summer in the icehouse? Or kill off the ticks, the emerald ash borer, and other non-native bugs without long deep months of cold? And even worse, I am afraid that this current blanketing of snow with no deep freeze into the ground below is already pushing up our seasonal plumbing into a network of broken pipes!
Snowflakes take a kernel of sand or dust to form around. This microscopic bit becomes the catalyst, the creative stimulus that generates the creative force of becoming. Listening to Shankar Vedantam on Hidden Brain I am intrigued by the discussion of how “creative force” comes into being. Whether artist or not, my fundamental question has to do with the moment of “whoosh” when something seemingly comes out of nothing into something!
So back to Ice Follies, to the Great Ice 2023 Festival, in North Hero! - ice or not, winter or not…. We need to get out and gather, to laugh and play, at home or with others, stomping the ground in celebration of winter. Things to do: walk to your favorite ponds and look for beaver activity… Check out what’s happening below the slush in the water, look for all those little animal tracks in and out of your foundation wall, and listen to wild creative music!
Migrations and songs: Cristina Pato at TEDxMadr www.youtube.com/watch?v=37e2EiGhcQE
Enjoy the time we have! See you on Feb 18th at 4pm for Hannah Dennison’s The Quarry Project - Film.
