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A Great Wind is Blowing

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A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.        –Catherine the Great

March weather, already, has been erratic with record high and below zero temperatures, with balmy sunshine and rain, hail, and snow, and with calm quietness and fierce, unrelenting winds.  The crash of warm and cold fronts caused tornadoes that touched down just miles from where we lived in Missouri during the first half of our wedded life.  The winds tore the shingles off the roof of First United Methodist Church in Odessa where we used to attend.  It seemed like the whole Midwest felt the fury of Mother Nature before it blew off to the East in a devil-may-care huff.

The up and down temperatures had the sap running in the maple trees with sapsicles forming on the frigid days.

On the warm days, sap dripped from the branches, and a little red squirrel lapped up the sweet goodness as he grasped onto the underside.

Then he would run over to the bird feeder and chow down on black oil sunflower seeds.  I thought he must be the best-fed squirrel in the land.

South winds blew in balmy warm weather last Sunday and Monday with highs near 60 degrees.  A storm approached from the west on Monday afternoon bringing rain, hail, and then a quiet calmness.

Late that evening we suddenly heard the wind crashing through the trees, this time from the WNW.  By morning we had snow.

The great wind blew like a madman for two nights and two days.  The barometer was close to the lowest I had ever recorded.  Tree branches thudded on the roof and tumbled to the ground.  It was unnerving in its demeanor and relentlessness—‘an ill wind that blows no good.’  It gave me a headache and frazzled my nerves.

The relentless wind made me feel like other times in my life when I had felt beat up just for existing.  Lyme disease made me feel that way.  The end years of my graduate school career made me feel that way.  I was just trying to do the best that I could, taking punches that had no sense of fair play, and ending up just barely keeping my head above water.  Imagination is defined as the ability to face and resolve difficulties.  We form mental images, most often without conscious knowing, of our life without the difficulty.  We problem-solve, we question, we wrestle with whatever madman is trying to take over our life, and we move in a different direction.  We are more resourceful than we know.  I think the headache has to come first.  Those thudding branches and frazzled nerves prime our imaginations in order for us to see our way to a different, better way.  The way to sweet Goodness.

Gleanings from February—Sky Gazing

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Look up at the sky and contemplate how amazing life is.*

When I was a kid, I remember lying down in the wide expanse of an alfalfa field looking up at an even wider, wilder expanse of blue sky.  There were so many things to contemplate at that time in my life—many of them amazing and life-affirming.  But I also remember having lots of questions about life that didn’t come with tidy answers and good feelings.

February’s cache of photos included a vast array of sky pictures—moons, sunrises, clouds, and spectacular sunsets.  I’m always amazed at the colors that can appear in the evening sky, how the orange sunlight can produce purple clouds…

and how orange clouds with tinges of pink look against the blue sky.

February’s full moon rose in a mottling of clouds, casting an almost-rainbow halo around itself.

Later in the evening, the clouds cleared, and I was finally able to see The Lady in the Moon as described to me by Muriel in the comments of my post Gleanings from September–One Way then Another.

Another amazing thing about sunsets is how they can change in just a matter of minutes.  The clouds move, the colors morph as the sun sets and the sky darkens.  This is how the sky changed in just eight minutes, all the while maintaining that white streak….

We didn’t have much snow in February, but on the last day, gray skies and tumbling snowflakes shrouded the bare trees.

This is one of my favorite sunset pictures.  The white zigzag seems like a portal to another world, an enticing glimpse of something beyond ourselves, even while the present, visible world is magnificent!

A blue sunset sky and quarter moon soothes the senses like a bedtime story.

One likes to think that after decades of living that answers come easy and it is no longer necessary to gaze up at the sky and contemplate life, but I know that is not true.  My childhood contemplation, my sky gazing, were rudimentary endeavors at living a conscientious life, of being in prayer with the great Creator.  I know that continues throughout our lives.  As we live, we experience heightened life-affirming events but also crushing despair, beyond which we could ever imagine as a child.  There are still questions, albeit different ones, without tidy answers and good feelings.  But as our lives are changing, all the while, a white streak of Goodness maintains us, soothes our senses, shrouds us with Love, and lets us catch a glimpse through a portal to What Is.

*Some had this quote from Rhonda Byrne, others had Unknown.

Meandering Along the Mississippi River

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Meandering leads to perfection.  —Laozi, ancient Chinese philosopher

Our Sunday journey began with a distinct purpose and place in mind—to find and explore the Mississippi River County Park.  We had never been to this park, but knew it wouldn’t be too hard to locate, as the Mississippi River runs right through St. Cloud and its northern suburbs.  Once on the right road with the River on our right, we headed north past large houses, an old saw mill dam, and groves of evergreen trees.  Finally, we saw the large sign for the park.  A man with his two small children and two large dogs tumbled from a pick-up truck for some outdoor running and fun in the snow-free prairie area.  A teenage girl drove slowly through the park again and again under the tutelage of her Dad.  The first thing I saw when I disembarked from the car was this huge old cedar tree, pockmarked with rows and rows of woodpecker drills.  What if our every wound was evident on the outside of us, for all the world to see?  Would we be kinder?  Would we take better care of one another?

A patch of white in the gray woods caught my eye.  Zooming in with the camera, I found a monster branch with a cyclops eye, shaggy moss green hair and shelf fungi hands, like gargoyles hanging from a ledge.  I’m still not sure what the white was—it seemed too white for a broken limb on such a dead looking branch, and the warm week of temperatures surely would have melted any snow that high in the tree.  Mystery.

We started down a trail to get to the River but didn’t get very far on the slick, water-coated snow/ice.  We tried another trail, but encountered the same thing—slippery slopes of melting ice with no traction.  The ice-covered River was within sight but out of bounds for today.  We would try another time.

With our plan and purpose foiled, we decided to follow the Great River Road, meandering north to see what we could see.  Prairie Home Companion played on the radio—Chris Thile’s mandolin filling the car and my soul with melodic music.  We saw a bald eagle swoop down to the ditch where its mate and a juvenile were standing.  Beyond them, the River was now open, flowing, with shelves of ice still hanging from the shores.

We drove to Blanchard Dam, one of the tallest dams on the Mississippi River.  It holds back water to create Zebulon Pike Lake (named after explorer Zebulon Pike who was commissioned to find the source of the Mississippi River in 1805.)  Above the dam, the lake was still iced over, despite our warm week, and a lone ice fisherman sat on his bucket patiently waiting for a bite.

We walked out on the old railroad bridge, now the Soo Line Trail, that crosses the river just below the dam.  Huge chunks of ice cascaded and fell from the open gates.  The noise of the water was deafening, and a stiff wind confused our senses even more.

Yet it was kind of exhilarating and marvelous at the same time!

Interesting ice patterns under the bridge by the shore gave way to the mighty Mississippi…

…meandering on its long journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Our attempt to get to the Mississippi River at the county park, as planned, didn’t work.  But sometimes things don’t go as planned.  We run into wounded things and mysterious monsters.  We try to navigate the road ahead and find ourselves on slippery slopes that want to take us down—and I don’t mean down to the River.  Our purpose and intention fail us.  It’s disappointing, to say the least.  My first inclination was to reject the quote by Laozi—how could meandering lead to perfection?!  Purpose, practice, goals, work, intention—those are the qualities that lead to perfection, right?  But then, when I looked more closely at my day, I realized how enjoyable it was to meander along the river.  Listening to Prairie Home Companion with nothing else to do but stare out the window at the River was soothing and satisfying.  The serendipitous sighting of a trio of eagles was a gift.  Standing in the power and beauty of the roaring, unleashed energy of the River was exhilarating.  Meandering along the Mississippi River really was the perfect part of my day.  

Distraction by Stars

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{Caveat: This post is a distraction from what’s really happening in Nature right now in Minnesota.}

The night sky and stars have been amazing the last couple of nights!  Orion is front and center out our living room window when I turn out the lights and have my last look out at Nature.  Most of our snow has melted, so it is darker outside than it usually is at this time of year.  The stars are crisp and bright, and I inevitably start singing to myself, “The stars at night are big and bright….deep in the heart of Texas.  The prairie sky is wide and high….deep in the heart of Texas.  The sage in bloom is like perfume….deep in the heart of Texas.  Reminds me of the one that I love….deep in the heart of Texas.”  My Dad used to sing this when I was growing up, especially when we were riding in the car at night when the stars were shining brightly.  I remember joining in and clapping loudly on the four counts between lines.  Our wide and high prairie sky with the bright stars was in South Dakota, and I used to imagine that Texas couldn’t be any better than our prairie sky.

Deep in the Heart of Texas was written in 1941 by June Hershey with music by Don Swander.  It was first recorded by Perry Como, then soon after made into a film by the same name and sung by Tex Ritter.  Gene Autry, Bing Crosby, Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans, George Strait and Nickel Creek have recorded the song over the decades.  The University of Texas Longhorn Band performs the song before each football game, and right down there, in Austin, Texas, lives one that I love.  Our daughter Emily lives deep in the heart of Texas.  The last time we saw her was for her Texas Hill Country wedding sixteen months ago.  So now the stars remind me of the song, the song reminds me of my Dad, and the words remind me of Emily.

I’m looking forward to summer when Emily and Shawn will be coming north for a visit!  I hope it won’t be too hot and humid like it was for parts of last summer.  Too hot and humid in Minnesota terms, that is, because we can usually sail through summer without air conditioning.  (We had six days of 90 degrees and above during the summer of 2016.)  Of course Austin is a hot place to live, in more ways than one.  Winter temperatures are often warmer there than summer ones here, so maybe I have nothing to worry about.

 

Distraction—the state of being diverted or drawn away; mental distress or derangement; that which distracts, divides the attention or prevents concentration; that which amuses, entertains, or diverts; division or disorder by dissension or strife.

It is unnerving for me to be writing this when the mid-February temperature outside in Central Minnesota is 57 degrees, nearly 30 degrees above average, with a forecast for five more days in the fifties.  It troubles me that I see green grass when we usually have a snow pack of at least half a foot in February.  It disturbs me to read that we have had above average temperatures for eighteen months in a row now.  Two weeks ago lake ice was sturdy and thick and now there’s open water.  This is where distraction comes in.  We all do it—social media, tv, computer, phone—those ‘entertaining’ things that take up our time and divert our attention from what is happening in real time in our own space.  We think about the past, how ‘good’ things used to be, and wish we could get back those feelings we think we had back then.  We dream about the future, imaging the great things that are going to happen….someday.  We affirm our own feelings—I love this warmer weather, no snow to shovel, no bitter cold—not looking beyond ourselves at the big picture.  We dismiss the facts—those meteorologists never get things right or back in 1889 it was this warm on this day; it happens.  We appease ourselves with ‘at least’ and ‘could be worse’ and ‘you worry too much.’  Nobody wants to feel troubled or unsafe or disturbed.  No one wants to feel that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.  It is horrible to feel helpless in the face of anything too big or overwhelming.  Nobody likes to acknowledge the red flags that are flying in our face.  So we distract ourselves with things that ‘make sense,’ with noble causes, with food, drink, or other addictions, with fun things, with relaxing things that we deserve.  

So what should we do?  One thing is fairly certain–the problem doesn’t go away while we are distracted.  It lurks in the background of our lives and shows up at inopportune times.  Gabor Mate writes that we need a balance of positive and negative thinking.  He says, “Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly … at what does not work.”  “Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality.  It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever the full truth may turn out to be.”*  Awareness of what is, acceptance of what is, and autonomy to take action and do the right thing.

 

*From the book ‘When the Body Says No’ by Gabor Mate, M.D.

The Gift of Affection

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Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.       –C.S. Lewis

I love gardening.  I love raking the flattened fall leaves off the perennial beds after a winter of snow and cold and watching the new shoots rise up out of the warming earth.  I love making tiny straight troughs in newly-tilled earth and deliberately placing vegetable seeds in them, covering them, and patting down the soil.  I love harvesting the abundant crops that grow from those tiny seeds, marveling each year at the miracle of it all.  But gardening can be hard…and messy.  Those stubborn sumac roots that creep into our vegetable garden are a pain to pull out.  Mosquitoes and humidity in the depth of summer combine to drive the most tolerant gardener to abandon ship in quest of a weed-free zone.  Even in the best of conditions, pulling weeds can be tedious and never-ending work.

It reminds me of Love.  I believe in the power of Love to heal, comfort, and grow a person into a better human being who is capable of sharing abundant gifts with the world.  I believe that pain can be contained in a trough of Love, covered over with compassion, and transformed into something miraculous.  But Love can be hard…and messy.  Anyone who has been in a family or a relationship knows this truth.  Sleep-deprived nights and chore-filled days marked by dirty diapers, colicky crying, and minimal adult conversation can test the mettle of new parents.  Years of marriage and routine and kids and jobs can strain the vows that bind us.  Heartbreak and tears that seep from the depth of our souls threaten to uproot all we have worked so hard to plant.

Under the large and multifaceted umbrella of Love is a quality that sustains the integrity of that Love.  It is a moment, an action, an interaction, and even a look—it is Affection.  Affection opens our hearts, makes us feel warm, induces a smile, relaxes our bodies.  It happens when I look at a beautiful flower or find an extraordinary creature in an ordinary moment of my day. It is the delight of biting into a home-grown tomato and the peace of a fragrant pine forest.  Affection is the warmth of holding someone’s hand, the gift of offering our time and energy, the tenderness of pushing back a strand of hair from a tear-stained face.  Affection demonstrates our attachment to the most important things in our lives.

On this Valentine’s Day, I wish you Love in all of its glory and difficulty, but I especially wish you Affection.  May you give and receive a moment, a smile, an action, a gift, a whisper of love, the extraordinary beauty of Nature, and the peace that passes all understanding. 

 

 

Standing in the Middle of a Lake

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Having courage does not mean we are unafraid.  –Maya Angelou

Fear has been my worst friend most of my life—my friend because there has rarely been a day when it hasn’t been by my side—and worst because friends are supposed to be fun, encouraging, and loving, and fear is none of those.  We know each other well, inevitable after so many decades together, but it still surprises me at times when fear takes the bit and bolts at a dead run.  I’m learning how to gather the reins, loosen the bit from its teeth, and get control again.

One of the things I’m afraid of is deep water.  I can swim enough to get from point A to point B if they aren’t very far apart, if one has no judgement on my ‘technique,’ and oh, if I can just about touch bottom.  When canoeing I prefer to stay close to the shore, and my temporary best friend is the aptly named life jacket.  Larger boats are more enjoyable—if I don’t think about how deep the water is below us.  The only thing worse than deep water in the summer is the thought of falling through the ice in the middle of a lake—uncommon, but not unheard of in Minnesota.  My mind had come up with this blog post title a number of weeks ago, so I knew I couldn’t write about it unless I did it.  Okay.  So here I am, standing in the middle of a lake…

Chris and I traveled to Eden Lake, a 263 acre oval-shaped lake to the south of us.  It’s 77 feet deep at the deepest point. (yikes)  The temperature was a chilly twelve degrees, but the sun was bright and the sky a beautiful blue.  We walked out on the lake as I reassured myself that the ice was safe—after all, there were plenty of pick-ups out there.

The ice was mostly snow-covered in interesting patterns crafted by the wind.  It made walking easier.

There were places where the ice was topped with a lacy white frosting that shattered like glass when we stepped on it.

Truck tracks ran in many directions, but one ‘road’ seemed to get the most traffic.

Cracks appeared in the ice, and there was evidence that melting water had seeped up from them during the January thaw but once again were frozen over and slick.

Ice chunks lifted from holes cut for spearing fish made it look like a moonscape.

Cedar branches marked the holes that had been cut, warning drivers to stay clear.

Ice houses were scattered in three different areas of the lake…

with a little village of them at the far end of the lake, at the end of the ice road.

I peered down through the ice where it was clear, unable to ascertain the thickness.  I wondered about the large cracks, like center-lines down a highway.  The ice landscape was so unfamiliar to me, though the fishermen must know how to ‘read’ it after years of experience.  Probably only the foolish end up falling through the ice—maybe the ones with no fear.

 

As I was leaving the lake, I stopped to ask a man how deep the ice was—he had just drilled some new holes and said the ice was about sixteen inches thick, more than enough for a pick-up truck to drive on according to the MN Department of Natural Resources.  How much is recommended for safe activities on foot?  Four inches!  Though the DNR clearly states that ice is never 100% safe.  Fear is not something I need to get rid of completely—it serves a purpose in keeping me safe in many situations.  And like walking on ice, I am never 100% safe.  But I really had nothing to fear standing in the middle of Eden Lake on that day.  John Berryman, a poet who lived and died a tragic life, wrote, “We must travel in the direction of our fear.”  Maybe my mind, by coming up with a title, was urging me towards my fear.  Maybe the center-line cracks illustrate that the highway of life has perils to be navigated.  We just have to make certain that fear does not completely envelop us, like it did poor John Berryman.  Maybe it’s the village at the end of the road that will dissipate the fear and bring us back to safety.  Maybe fear is not my worst friend, after all.

 

Thanks to Sterling for answers to my ice questions.

Gleanings from January—Moon Shadows on Snow

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I’m being followed by a moon shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow.  –Cat Stevens

January rings in another year with Auld Lang Syne—‘for old times’ sake’—by looking back at what happened during the previous year.  And then we begin again.  Each month and each day gives us that same opportunity.  At the end of each day, we can look back at what happened, check in with ourselves, set our intentions for the next day, and with the dawn, begin again.

We had days of beautiful snow last month—perfect January weather.  In the midst of a snowstorm, the bright cardinal gave us a glimpse of the joyous, colorful Spring to come.

There is Beauty in Wintertide when ordinary objects become works of art.

We also had days of unusual melting in January as the temperatures soared and bleakness enveloped the land.

One of the lovely sights of winter nights is moon shadows on snow—a wordless poem that stirs the soul with its artistry and mystery.

Another mystery unfurled in the daytime snow—this ‘snow roll’ and track appeared one afternoon, starting at the down spout and rolling 10-12 feet across relatively flat ground.  Now how did that happen?!

This snow-covered nest caught my eye, and I thought of how their carefully crafted and hidden home during the leaf-covered spring and summer was now exposed to the elements and for all to see.

Another month, another day is relegated to ‘old times.’

 

Old years, months, and days become our history—a story that covers the gamut from bleakness to beauty, from ordinary to art, from predictable to mystery.  With our history comes our lessons, but only if we reflect on what happened, what our role was, and how we may have gotten some parts of it wrong.  There are times in which we hide ourselves for protection and for good reason, but eventually, as we begin again, we are once more exposed to the elements.  And here’s the mystery—we become stronger and more resilient for having done that shadow work in the darkness.  Our lives become a wordless poem of artistry and mystery.  We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet for old times’ sake, revel in the Goodness of the present moment, and catch a glimpse of the Joy yet to come.

Be Like the Birch Tree

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All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.  –Ellen Glasgow

Yesterday I went back to school!  Oh my gosh, do I love school!  Sitting in the dim classroom with all the other students, getting the syllabus, seeing what’s on the agenda for the day, week, or semester, and meeting the new teacher or professor—it’s one of the best feelings!  Actually, this time, my school was only for a one-day conference, but it was exciting, nonetheless, and represents something that is key to my life—learning and growing.

The Birch tree right outside our front door is growing, seemingly right before our eyes.  Large and small swatches of white bark are peeling off the Paper Birch in horizontal strips.

It seems to just be bursting out of its bark!

Betula papyrifera is a fairly fast growing tree that will add 13″-24″ each year and is one of a few trees that annually sheds its bark.

Young Paper Birch bark is darker in color and when older than five years, the white bark will appear.

The Paper Birch is also called Canoe Birch, as the Native Americans and early fur trappers used the bark to make canoes, containers, and wigwams.

The bark has a high oil content making it an excellent fire starter even when wet and is what gives the bark its waterproof and weather resistant qualities.

The discarded bark was also used as paper to send messages to people, and we have been the lucky recipients of a few birch bark postcards when our kids lived up in the Northwoods for the summers.

One of the three trunks of our Birch was drilled by a woodpecker last summer in neatly spaced rows.  Often they drill for sap and insects it attracts, preferring soft bark and high sugar content, both of which the Birch tree has.  

This truck’s growth is not as exuberant as the other two and is probably using its energy to combat the injury from the woodpeckers and/or insects.

 

I am like the Birch tree with its burst of growth.  Sometimes our growth comes when we choose it—like going back to school or taking a class to learn a new skill.  Other times our growth happens from circumstances that present themselves to us—an opportunity for a new job or a trip to a different country.  And then there are times of wounding—of injury or disease, of divorce or estrangement, of betrayal or abandonment—when our souls and hearts are drilled with holes, when it feels like our life-force is seeping out.  It’s hard to believe that anything so devastating can lead to growth.  At first, all our energy goes to stop the bleeding, to send out the immune cells that protect us from losing the battle when the first shots are fired.  When stabilized, ever so slowly we begin to stitch together some new fabric, discarding the threads that no longer work and incorporating new ones that are stronger, more resilient and authentic.  The winter of our discontent begins to wane in the face of the sun.  Tiny shoots of new growth push up through the soil of darkness.  Old beliefs peel away to reveal our smooth, authentic Self.  The old bark has done its job, protecting us when we needed it, and then provides the kindling to ignite a new stage of growth.  Be like the Birch tree!   

January Meltdown

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Many of us have experienced the meltdown of a toddler.  It begins slowly, often unnoticeably, with fidgeting or quietness.  We notice it when the whining starts, the unhappy whimpers, the stiff bodies refusing to conform to car seats or highchairs, the turning away of eye contact, the swatting of tiny hands at anything within reach.  Full-on crying ensues that cannot be quieted or calmed, and usually the body is fully involved with kicking, hitting, arching of the back, and rolling around.  A meltdown is a full-body experience.

This week, typically the coldest part of winter here in Minnesota, we are experiencing an abnormal meltdown.  Daytime temperatures crept above freezing, softening the fluffy whiteness and melting the thin layer of snow on the driveway.  Freezing temps at night iced the sidewalks and roads to slickness again.  Precipitation during the day came as drizzle and raindrops instead of snowflakes, and fog formed with all the melting moisture.  Air quality plummeted.  The last three nights, the temperature stayed above freezing—normal low temperatures of mid to late April.  The melting snow dripped off the roof sounding like I was in the wrong season or place.  With all the bleak fog, there wasn’t a chance for sunshine.  A meltdown is a full-sensory experience.

 

The meltdown of a toddler isn’t an aberration—it occurs within a normal developmental stage of growth when children are egocentric and often struggling with communicating their needs and wants.  A meltdown is a reaction to feeling overwhelmed, and there is an underlying reason or reasons—they are tired, hungry, frustrated, bored, thirsty, and/or overstimulated, which often happens when our children are always on adult schedules.  An attentive parent can anticipate problems and notice the signs that something isn’t quite right.  Intervention with a snack, a nap, a change of plans, or attention can prevent a meltdown.

November was abnormally warm (Not Your Normal November), and we still had flowers blooming.  This January meltdown is also out of the ordinary, with nighttime temperatures above freezing (32 degrees F) when they usually average 1-2 degrees above 0.  We will have more snow and colder temperatures, but the whimpering has begun.  As caretakers of this Earth, it is our responsibility to notice the signs that something isn’t quite right and intervene with positive actions.  After all, we don’t want the meltdown to be a full-earth experience.

The Parable of the Flaming Sunset

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A day of snow ended with a flaming sunset that glowed warm yellow and orange in the center of the light.  Cool pink and blue surrounded the flame, reflecting the cold whiteness of the January earth.  The Old One knew this was no ordinary sunset—the light signified a special unfolding of time and events.

The next morning snow fell again.  With it came an unusual occurrence—a large black crow flew to the tree beside the dwelling and spoke to the Old One.  “Go to the top of the world where the Three Wise Guardians stand, then find the Giver of Life.”

A second crow flew to the Maple tree and this time the message was for the Young One.  “Make a path for the Old One, for the Old One has spent many years making a path for you.”  A tiny Chickadee scribe marked the words of these extraordinary messengers.

The Old One and the Young One looked at one another in dismay at the talking of the crows.  Remembering the flaming sunset from the night before, the Old One prepared for the walk to the top of the world with hope and excitement.  The snow stopped falling, and the sky became a brilliant blue, reflecting its tint on the snow.

And as they walked through the snow, the Young One made a path for the Old One, just as the crow had instructed.

They reached the top of the world where the guardian Oaks stood strong and wind-swept.

“Find the Giver of Life,” thought the Old One.  So the Old One followed the Young One down the steep hill to the River, holding on to resilient saplings for support, and was glad the trail blazed by young legs made the going a little easier.

The River was covered in ice and snow.  A circle of open water along the bank warned the Young One and Old One not to walk on the ice, for the flowing current underneath made the way uncertain and dangerous.  So they walked between the shore and the rocky outcroppings.

Old One stepped on something under the snow that crunched and gave away.  Young One, who had walked the path before the snow, said it was trash, bags of trash.  Old One was horrified that such a beautiful, life-giving place was littered with garbage.  Dispirited, Old One turned to go back, wondering why the crows had sent them down to the River, the Giver of Life, only to find danger in the ice-covered river and rubbish strewn along its shores.  All covered over with pure white, beautiful snow.

The walk back home was more difficult.  The steep hill and frigid cold grabbed the air from Old One’s lungs.  The trek that had started out so hopeful and inspiring had turned arduous and disheartening.  What did the Three Wise Guardians at the top of the world know about the journey and what lay below their watchful eye?

The Young One led the way with strength and silence, knowing the Old One was discouraged and slow but still determined.  When almost home, the Young One pointed to a log that had been split in half.  “Look.  The snow has made the log whole again.”

 

 

“I will guide you.  I will turn darkness into light before you and make the rough places smooth.”  –Isaiah 42:16