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.

A winter's day

A walk in the woods starts out on the seat of the tractor.

John leading the way. Manga and Owen bringing up the rear.

Tracks in the snow; rabbits, squirrels, mice, canines, even bobcat.

And then there was a mysterious track we couldn't identify.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Merry Christmas!

magnolias

Magnolia blossoms in the spring.

These are the seeds that the blossoms turn into in the fall. Beautiful either way.

colder

A lot has happened in a week. It's gotten a lot colder, temps. in the 20's at night. Basil in Allyn's front garden is done for. Moved the patio furniture up in the attic, wood rack back in the kitchen. Ice scraper from the back seat to the front seat. Leaves are gone from the maples. Snow on the tops of the mountains.

gone for a week

October 18, 1973

I am up before the sun, and make a fire. The water boils as the sun ignites the peaks, and we breakfast in sunshine on hot tea and porridge. A nutcracker is rasping in the pines, and soon the crows come, down the morning valley; cawing, they hide among long shimmering needles then glide in, bold, to walk about in the warming scent of resin, dry feet scratching on the bark of fallen trees.

Since Jang-bu cannot reach Tarakot before the evening, we have time. I walk barefoot in the grass, spreading my gear with ceremony: today, for the first time in weeks, everything will dry, a great event in expedition life. Then with my stave I prop my pack upright and sit back against the mountainside, my face in cold shade and hot sun on my arms and belly.

Pine needles dance in a light breeze against the three white sister peaks to the northwest. I sit in silence, lost in the burning hum of mountain bees. An emerald butterfly comes to my knee to dry its wings, gold wings with black specks above, white polka dots beneath. Through the frozen atmosphere, the sun is burning.

In the clearness of this Himalayan air,  mountains draw near, and in such splendor, tears come quietly to my eyes and cool on my sunburnt cheeks. This is not mere soft-mindedness, nor am I all that silly with the altitude. My head has cleared in these weeks free of intrusions--mail, telephones, people and their needs--and I respond to things spontaneously, without defensive or self-conscious screens. Still, all this feeling is astonishing: not so long ago I could say truthfully that I had not shed a tear in twenty years.

The Snow Leopard
Peter Matthiessen

stubble

Wasn't too long ago that the corn was green and very tall in fields all over the state. Summer has turned to fall, and corn has turned to silage; corn stalks to stubble.