The Ashokan Way. Gail Straub

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СКАЧАТЬ all the writings of the Hudson Valley nature mystic John Burroughs, it is his descriptions of winter that speak to me most deeply, including this passage from In the Catskills.

      “The simplicity of winter has a deep moral,” he writes, “The return of nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.”

      “Yes,” I think. “That is just how I feel.” After the abundant sensual feast of the fall, the zen simplicity of winter is a great relief. Its emptiness offers the natural counterpart to such fullness. This cycle’s soft shades of grey calm me. With the bare bones of the landscape now accentuated, I, too, am invited to get down to the bones of things. My mind has more space and my thoughts can spread out. As my entire psyche turns inward, my interior life begins its richest season. Like a stew simmering on the woodstove, my creative projects cook during these months. The longer periods to think, read, and write leave my mind disciplined and sharp, my body resolved to act when the warmer days arrive. After an arduous period of mental concentration, it’s pure joy to go outside into the cold air and empty the mind once again. And for me there is no greater winter pleasure than to walk out into the snow.

      And now it’s snowing hard and I have a paradoxical sensation that the cold snow forms a warm blanket for this mountain valley. Utterly democratic, the whirling flakes transform every inch of the landscape. The snow owns this entire place, like a benevolent ruler who just suddenly showed up. Sounds are magnified in the luminous quiet: the crunching of my footsteps, the clumps of snow falling from the tree branches, and the wind rustling through the forest like woodland chimes. I can imagine John Burroughs walking next to me exclaiming how “the world lies about in a trance of snow!” Or the old white-bearded mystic might be pointing out the tracks of deer or hawks, calling them “the snow walkers.” And I am a snow walker too, transported by the marvel of falling flakes. Now fully garbed in immaculate white, I open my arms grateful to receive the gifts of winter: a season to simplify and return to the bones of my life; a period to enrich my interior life through reflection, reading, and writing; and a time to create new ideas with a quiet clear mind.

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