Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Snow Geometry




The transformational quality of snow is always a source of amazement. Overnight, the green and flounced world of the woods is changed, through the prestidigitation of weather, to flat planes or crystal lattices. Homely wire enclosures manifest as sparkling grids.



 Frozen hoses spiral as mysteriously as nebulae. 


 Stone walls peek from beneath marshmallowed heaps like mandorlas of gloom.



 (Do you know about the mandorla? It’s also known as the Vesica Piscis, and is the almond shape created by the coming together of two circles, symbolizing the interactions and interdependence of opposing worlds and forces. The circles may be understood to represent spirit and matter or heaven and earth – certainly appropriate to the coming together of heavenly snow and dark, wet stone and soil.)

Even the roof contributes its geometry to the frozen snow that slides slowly from it, creating a wave form the harmonics of which must surely be humming inaudibly through the crystals of ice. 



And in the garden, the little boy on the fountain is wearing the magician’s conical cap of the sorcerer’s apprentice, as he pours from his alchemical vessel.



Meanwhile, in the warmth of the house, the poppies of spring are wearing their own wildly spiking caps as they burst forth in Dionysian revel. Round and green, their bud casings are miniature earths, sprouting fingers of growth that reach for a sun still flirting behind clouds. What a mystery and a wonder the world is and how magical, these final days of that old geomancer, March!


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