Flash Frozen.....

Nah, this isn't about the fish you saw in the supermarket yesterday.......it's about what happened in the woods around here last night.  After enough days of sixty-something weather to spoil us, get us running around like spring was really here to stay....it dropped into the single numbers last night.  A Canadian high--different than the one they are now writing prescriptions for, eh--moved in and brought a mass of wicked cold ayuh with it.

So, when I took the Golden Girls up to the woods this morning for our daily walk, I was amazed to see what had happened to the larger puddles and pools of standing water.  This freeze came on so hard that the water formed the biggest crystalline shapes I have ever encountered.  The beech leaf in the frame gives you some idea of the actual size of the crystalline structures in the pool. 

It comes as no surprise that the process by which ice forms and how crystals organize themselves is something that has been looked at in great detail and depth.  There are, in fact, entire websites devoted to this: www.snowcrystals.com, is one example.  As an artist I don't really feel drawn to the science of it, although I do appreciate that this is one of those cases where that level of knowledge seems to be telling us that Nature has its own indigenous intelligence and that it is absolutely stunning in its scope.

What appeals to me, indeed, pulls me up short, reaching for my pocket-camera, is the sheer beauty of these constructs.  Whether it be the infinite diversity of snowflakes, or a simple puddle that has undergone transformation in the night, the ways in which water organizes itself are enough to make me stare in appreciation.  There seems to be a message there for the passer-by: harmony is appealing at a very fundamental level.  In the same way that a well-bowed violin, or a well-played piano chord, can hold us with its vibrations until it fades into the silence, a visual harmony can impart its own small gift.

And, oddly enough, whatever that little shot of Beauty is, it gives me a feeling of hopefulness.  I can't explain how that segue works....but, it is there.  I have felt it far too many times to doubt that it is real.