Hello Snow! Hello beauty!

Looking out my windows this morning towards the pond I saw such beauty. The ground was covered with snow and snow still clung to tree branches and covered the neighbor’s small pine tree.

All I can say is

I’m grateful for the mild winter we have had and today I am thankful for the much needed moisture last night’s snow brought to our parched ground. Though I would have been happy with rain, this beautiful snow-covered landscape also brightened my mood today.

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.

― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

We’re expecting more snow Saturday night and Sunday, more moisture for the soil. Though I would have been happy to slide into spring without all this snow, I am focusing on simply feeling grateful for the moisture. A slow melt may help the ground soak up more moisture so perhaps snow is better than rain this time of year.

What a contrast today is to last week when I walked at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, a reminder that everything changes all the time, especially the weather in Minnesota in March.

The earth is our origin and destination. The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows.”
― John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace