Heavy snows like this
fall from the roof
with a dramatic thud;
But today’s
tumble
is…
silenced.
Ripped Apart
by the wind
before reaching
Ground.
(Kelly Salasin, January 2012)
Reply
January 2, 2013
Category Archives: Winter
January 1, 2013
the wind
like an ocean
crashes against my door
rattling the timbers
of this anchored ship
amidst a sea of snow
(new years day, 2013, kelly salasin)
February 7, 2012
Earth Story Calendar
Tonight’s Snow Moon is so spectacular that even after an egregiously long day at work, I must share an excerpt from the equally spectacular 2012 Earth Story Calendar by local creative, Peter Adair.
The month of February opens with these show stopping words: Earth Adopts a Child: The Moon Appears
I’ve never met Peter, but I’m studying to be a yoga teacher with a friend of his, who gifted his students this calendar. I’m a gift lover so this was a nice surprise, but it wasn’t until February that the magic of it began to unfold.
The art of January’s Supernova Event was stunning, but it’s February’s Moon that drew me in. Like a ballad, the accompanying text sweeps me up into its story again and again.
According to Peter, it is inspired by the work of a mathematical cosmologist (Geez, where do they go to school?), who is described as having a heart of a poet. No kidding:
Soon after Earth’s formation, during a time when asteroids rain upon the fledgling solar system, a sizeable intruder strikes our globe in a sideswipe collision. From this shuddering meeting, a portion of Earth’s body spews into space. The interloper, its momentum reduced through the encounter, succumbs to Earth’s gravitational embrace and is received into orbit. There, it coalesces with the scattered material of Earth and becomes our Moon.
My gosh! Is it me or does that take your breath away? But don’t stop there, it continues…
Earth’s daughter gradually slows our planet’s spin to its accustomed twenty-four hour rotation, establishes the axial tilt making possible the four seasons, and produces the caressing tides along shorelines that will become the fecund wombs of evolving life.
Who needs March when February makes you swoon; and No, I haven’t looked ahead. That’s taboo! But how fortunate are we to live in such a place–with such a daughter shining above us.
It wasn’t until I moved to Vermont that I began to truly notice the moon. Others taught me how. Women mostly. And now Peter, and his “ode to creation” in the Earth Story Calendar. I kind of feel bad for telling you about it because it looks like they’re sold out.
There’s always next year, and in the meantime, take a drink of that gorgeous daughter in the sky.
Kelly Salasin, Snow Moon, 2012
More from the Earth Story Calendar:
The scientific account of Earth’s formation and development is a story of vibrant creativity and stunning transformation. The journey begins within the fiery core of a star, and concludes (for now) with the emergence of a species able to comprehend its origin. We have learned that the unfolding of the human is interwoven with the unfolding of the planet. This is the theme of Earth Story calendar.
January 13, 2012
Now that 2011 is behind us, I’d like to skip the retrospective and forget that there ever was a fire or a murder or a flood; But the stores are still closed on Main Street, and Michael Martin’s sister just posted on my blog, and MacArthur is not the road it once was.
I search on the internet and the find that the only thing new about Richard is my own writing on this blog. What’s happening? It’s been almost half a year. Wouldn’t it be convenient to imagine Richard never existed?
But then I think about the Martins. How are they moving forward? How important is the trial to them? When is the trial?
(I was just called for jury duty; but not for a criminal case–Thank God.)
Yesterday, I came upon a poem about being in prison. My son was home sick and asked if I’d read to him while he ate his soup. I picked up the book that I found at the Marlboro Book Swap last year, and blew off the dust. I had intended to read excerpts from A Call to Character on a regular basis, but the practice died long ago.
“Let’s find something about kindness,”I say.
My son smirks with embarrassment. Just a moment earlier he snapped at me in that sardonic “tween-age” fashion. In my best NVC, I let him know it stung. With his big heart, it pains him to know that he’s hurt me, even if he can’t help himself.
“Darn, there’s no section on Kindness, only Compassion” I say. “But you’ve got plenty of that.”
“Read anything,” he says, delighted to have me seated beside him all day.
I flip through the stories and plays and fables, and a poem catches my eye in the Self-discipline category. I begin reading… to myself.
“Read aloud,” my son begs.
“This one is about being in jail; I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“Read it,” he says; and so I proceed:
Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison
...To wait for letters inside, to sing sad songs, or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling is sweet but dangerous. Look at your face from shave to shave, forget your age, watch out for lice and for spring nights, and always remember to eat every last piece of bread-- also, don't forget to laugh heartily. And who knows, the woman you love may stop loving you. Don't say it's no big thing: it's like the snapping of a green branch to the man inside. To think of roses and gardens inside is bad, to think of seas and mountains is good. Read and write without rest, and I also advise weaving and making mirrors. I mean, it's not that you can't pass ten or fifteen years inside and more-- you can, as long as the jewel on the left side of your chest doesn't lose its luster!(Nazim Hikmet)
Kelly Salasin, January 2012
ps. My apologies to those of you who clicked the link to MacArthur Rd above. I couldn’t help myself. That song won’t leave my mind today, especially as it rains on top of our long-awaited snow.
December 13, 2011
We brought home the tree this past weekend–from the wind swept farm upon McKinley Hill in Jacksonville. I don’t know if it’s really called McKinley Hill, but those are the people for whom we remove our mittens to scribble “twenty dollars and oo cents” in frozen ink each year.
We thought about waiting for more snow to lend more of the season, but we opted for what we had, not knowing if the weather would offer more or take what little remains.
The sun was bright on the hill and the view spectacular, and so was the wind chill which made for little argument over which tree was the best. Even the new guy at the baler was surprised at how quickly we returned dragging our balsam behind us.
It was such a tiny tree that it hardly needed to be shortened when we got home, but my husband took off a foot any way–with the chain saw–which my 16 year-old defended, “Mom. He’s a man. He has to use the most powerful tool available.”
A simple hand-saw had been all we used at the farm. It was our resident enthusiast who did the sawing: Eleven-year old Aidan also pulled the tree carriage down the hill and just as enthusiastically dragged it back up the hillwhile my husband loaded the evergreen on our Civic.
I love seeing trees on top of cars. I like counting how many pass us in a day. This absorption with Christmas trees is definitely not p.c. of me, as most of my rural friends feel compromised in even cutting down a Charlie Brown one from their own woods, while others forgo the tradition altogether and hang their ornaments from evergreen boughs.
This year I actually considered this, out of fatigue. I didn’t want to face the dramatic overhaul that is required in our small living room to accommodate the evergreen; but this year’s choice was so trim–that we only moved a chair.
Our tradition is to leave the tree unadorned so as to appreciate it for as long as possible for its simple gift of green. Next we add the lights, and these too are left in their twinkling solitude to inspire us.The big night comes when the ornaments are unwrapped from their labeled boxes and carefully placed upon the boughs for the right effect of color and shape and medium and reflection.We add egg nog and festive foods to this occasion, and then do the same with the holiday leftovers when it comes time to pack up the ornaments–on Little Christmas. The tree itself remains, lit and then unlit, until I can bear parting with the Balsam beauty in favor of order and an extra chair.
The Christmas tree is one of my favorite traditions along with the advent calendar and a daily reading from National Wildlife’s, December Treasury. A tribute to the Evergreen is today’s offering:
Evergreen Reflection, Kelly Salasin, December 2011
The Ancients
One need not go into history to find the reasons for veneration of the evergreen tree or bough as part of the Christmas season. They are of the enduring things of this earth, and man has known them as long as man has been here. The pine, the spruce, the hemlock, the fir – all those conifers that know no leafless season – have been held in special favor when man would have symbols of life that outlast all winters. And even more enduring, in geologic time, are the ground pine, the ground cedar, and the club mosses, most venerable of all the evergreens.
We gather them now, even as the ancients gathered them reaching for the reassurance of enduring green life at the time of the winter solstice. For the pines and their whole family were old when the first man saw them. Millions of years old, even, even at a time when millions of years had no meaning. When we gather them we are reaching back, back into the deep recesses of time. But, even as the ancients, we are reaching for reassurance, for the beauty of the living green but also for that green itself, the green of life that outlasts the gray winds, the white frosts, and the glittering snow of winter.
So we bring in the pine, the spruce, the hemlock – and now, because of the cultivation of Christmas trees on a wide scale, we do so without desecrating the natural forest. We bring the festoons of ground pine and partridgeberry, feeling a kinship with enduring things. They help us to catch, if only briefly, that needed sense of hope and understandable eternity.
-Hal Borland
Kelly Salasin
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