Thursday, January 26, 2012

Winter also shows Nature's subtle side



If the sky was a painting then the winter dawn would be done in water colours, all delicate shades and nuances. In summer, it would be painted in vivid acrylics.
Winter is often labelled as depressing, brutal, cold and dark, but it is also a time for noticing the little things.
I was snowshoeing yesterday and was struck by the fragrance of balsam fir and white cedar.
Likewise, I can pick up the smell of wood smoke from a neighbour's chimney a mile away.
These things would go unnoticed in the summer when the air is overwhelmed with the scent of flowers.
Also, in the summer a tree's limbs are obscured by leaves but now they stand revealed as a network of ever-finer branches.
It's like a circulatory system, I mused, thinking of the human body. Then it hit me; it IS the circulatory system, the tree's system, and it is shaped exactly like ours. It just works in the opposite direction, taking food from the leaves and storing it in the trunk and roots.
I knew that, I guess, but it took a walk in the winter to remind me.
We're not that much different, trees and us, at least so it seems in the winter dawn.

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