It has to be cold for precipitation to fall from the sky as snow. A lot of people don’t like the cold and, by association, snow. Such a hasty judgement could mean that they miss out on one of the most amazing phenomena in nature.
Walk through door number 22 into the snowy woods.
December 22, 2024
I really think the woods are just as lovely in winter as in summer. They’re so white and still, as if they were asleep and dreaming pretty dreams.
– Anne Shirley, from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables
I wholeheartedly agree. Winter’s beauty is sometimes hard to appreciate. After a technicolor explosion of foliage in autumn, its simpler palette can feel a little dull. The trees may no longer have their leaves, but the contrast between their bark and the winter sky is beautiful. There’s nothing to distract the eye from their graceful form.
A blanket of snow muffles footsteps, bird calls, and nearby traffic noise, allowing, as Anne Shirley said, the trees to sleep peacefully until spring. But it also ensures there are no secrets in the woods. Nests become visible. Weak sunlight reflects, unfiltered, into the depths of the woods. Predators lose their cover, yet prey leave visible trails. Mother Nature manages to keep things in monochromatic balance.
If you live someplace prone to snow, take a walk after the next snowfall. You don’t have to walk through the woods to appreciate the hush that falls after it snows. City streets and beaches take on an otherworldly quality, too. I even wonder if there’s more to it than snow’s insulating properties. Perhaps the peaceful aura snow produces allows us to reveal the secrets we keep from ourselves; footprints through the snow that lead us to our souls.
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