Sunshine through snow-filled trees, Strathspey
This week I awoke to find 18″ of snow overnight after Tuesday’s blizzards. After digging out the house, I went for a cross-country ski expedition in the local woods. Its hard going in such deep, fresh snow – ideally one would let it settle for a few days before going out, but in our climate that means its probably melted by then.
The sun put in an appearance for an hour or so, giving delightful light through the trees, before the snow showers resumed. Stopping to photograph is a good excuse for an out-of-breath skier to rest… although the wind blew a constant barrage of clumps of snow from the trees, conspiring to hit the lens (twice) whilst trying to take this image.
Its good to be out in this super-reflective brightness, especially when it seems we haven’t seen the sun in weeks, and good to give unaccustomed muscles a stretch (ouch!).
“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”
–John O’Donohue