Nothing that is not there

Driving in to Rutland this morning. Temperature gauge on the car read -8 degrees. I am a long ways from Brazil.

The waning moon was rising in the south. On either side were the planets Venus and Jupiter. Stunning, cold but stunning.

Yesterday was very cold, but if you could set that aside, it was a beautiful day. Allyn went skiing in the back. When she got back she was gushing about the blue sky. "It was the same color blue as my skis!"

Later in the day I was driving through Chittenden on the way to Pittsford. Came over a hill, and there it was. January in Vermont in all its splendor.

This blog has taught me a lot over the years. One of those lessons is that I often see the natural world through the prism of self. When I can let that go, the world opens itself up to me in the most amazing way.

The Snow Man

By Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And to have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow

And, nothing himself beholds

Nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.