First Snowfall

First Snow on Strickers Pond © 2011 Bo Mackison

Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is …
Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart,
all of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace. ~ Frederick Buechner

The snow drifted from the skies this morning. I could make out the swirling white even in the darkness before dawn. As the day began, as the sky lightened to a slate gray, there was just enough snow to cover the ground, the roads, the outlines of the branches. By noon the sidewalks, driveways, and streets were free of snow and as the day continued to warm most of the snow melted into the grass. Only clumps of the white stuff remain.

Madison has had an average of 15″ of snow by this time of the year for at least the last five years. Often the accumulation by the New Year is over the twenty inch mark. We have usually had our first weather warnings and blizzard planning by now. But not this year.

It is looking unlikely that there will be a white Christmas 2011. Better traveling weather. That’s a good thing.

But I’m glad I was able to photograph the pond dressed in white. It may be all the snow I see this year. In a few weeks, I’ll be traveling to Arizona to prepare for the upcoming art shows.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer, owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She took photographs in the snow, sat in the living room with the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree for company and meditated, and then picked up family at the airport – almost everyone is home for the holidays.  Now I am really listening to life!