Winter Reflections from my Window...
There is nothing quite a breath taking as looking out a darkened window to see snow crystals illuminated by moonlight. Yet that is the view that has been greeting us for the last several nights here at Kilmurry House. There is not a lot of snow here, not like Belfast, or even Dublin. But its enough to make the entire area look like an enchanted landscape, the sort of place you expect magic fog to rise out from. In fact, we do get frozen fog, last night under the full moon. Its mists made even the window glass seem cloudy, and yet you could still see though it, sort of.
One of our friends came over early in the evening and reported that she had been able to walk with her dogs, freely across the snow covered fields, without even the aid of a flash light. Her hands gestured back and forth as she tried to put into words what it felt like, wind lightly blowing her hair, the dogs frolicking back and forth beside her. In the end, she gave up, for some things there are no words. I guess, you just have to be there.
If my foot had been completely well, I think I would have suggested we all take our own dogs out into the crystal darkness. Where the clouds were parted, you could see stars winking against a grey cast sky. Only partly there, the moon so bright, reflecting upon the ground frost. From the window, it looked almost as if the stars above had sent some of their number to die and wink their last breaths upon the ground. Earth echoing sky, in a moon lit trance of crystal sparks.
Going outside briefly, to let the dogs out the back door, the frozen air hit my face like a brick wall. Smacking into me and forcing me back towards the door. Recovering, I forced myself to step out into the fog, just for a second. Frozen mist in front of me, and fire-born steam escaping from my lips. The dogs are delighted, this is their weather. Descended from wolves who followed humans through the ages of ice, their thick coats protect them in a way that my skin does not. And, not wearing the furs my ancestors would have used on such a night, I must call them back. Back, into the warmth of the kitchen cave. Stone-Aged dogs perhaps, but a very much twenty-first century human who watches them
But just for a moment, a tiny moment, it was almost as if time had slipped. And I knew that thousands of years ago, other wolf-dogs had played while my ancestors watched them play hide and seek in the frozen clouds. Had they turned their faces in awe towards a sky lit nearly as bright as day, knowing that night still walked upon the earth: People who had not seen the modern wonders of electric lighting but instead beheld the night-jeweled dancers: green, reds, yellows and even violet dancing above the diamonds of snow. I have seen these dancers, their fire flickering a trail that seems to race from earth to the highest point of the heavens. Did the Elder Folk to think they appeared as souls marching towards the starts themselves? It would not surprise me.
Last night, if the night-frost fires danced they did it farther north than here. But I could feel their echo in the flashing of moon light upon the brittle snow. They say the deep winter will continue here, for a few more days at least. The moon itself, will continue on its journey, its brightness dimming as the nights pass on. But the memories of its passing over the snow remain. At least as long as I have memory......
Disaster Cat....on a very quiet, Irish, Winter night....