“Water, in all its forms, is what carries the knowledge of life throughout the universe.”     –Anthony T. Hincks

When a person lives where water is always liquid and falling as rain or flowing like a river, I think there is a tendency to not think about it much, to perhaps take it for granted.  But when something is ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’—flooding or drought—or something unusual or rare—snow in Texas—we tend to pay attention.  We haven’t had much snow here in Central Minnesota for most of this winter—until the week before last, that is, when we had over a foot of it.  I looked out the front door at the big pile of white stuff and thought, “Isn’t snow funny and amazing and beautiful?”  I mean, it’s just water, frozen water!  Beautiful crystals of frozen water falling from the sky!  Frozen water that is shoveled and piled, rolled and patted into balls to form snowmen and forts by kids at recess.  Amazing!

  “There is a beauty about winter that no other season can touch.”  –Hailey DeRoo Haugen

“Kindness is like snow—It beautifies everything it covers.”  –Kahlil Gibran

Another beautiful frozen water phenomenon is frost—frozen water vapor on the surface of objects.

Sun-warmed and melted snow dripped and re-froze into icicles—Mother Nature’s decorating of the evergreen Spruce trees.

“Snow is water, and ice is water, and water is water; these three are one.”  –Joseph Dare

And then there’s ice.  Ice that’s strong enough to drive a truck on.  Ice that captures and immobilizes tree branches, leaves, aquatic plants and roots.  Ice that holds a village of ice shacks and fishermen.

“The water hears and understands.  The ice does not forgive.”  –Leigh Bardugo

Ice as art.  Ice as frozen Rorschach tests.  What do you see?

“You’re gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul.”  –Christina Perri

If water, in all its forms, carries the knowledge of life, we have a lot to learn in Winter.  I respect the idea that winter, in all its starkness, can radiate a beauty like no other.  I love the idea of beautifying the world with kindness.  I like how water and situations and people can be transformed, change states, be honed in the process of warming, melting, and re-freezing to flowing, understanding, and forgiving.  Goodness and Grace can thaw an icy soul.  I also honor the toughness of ice, how it builds up inch by inch during the harshness of Winter’s cold in order to support the things we drive and those that drive us.  How it supports a village of people who want the same basic things in life, in spite of how the harshness can capture and immobilize us at times.  I appreciate that frozen water (oh, the chemistry and physics of it all!) is art.  How we can stare into the depths of it or notice the light or marvel at the structure, and at the same time, learn something about ourselves.  There is a great deal of hope in every snowflake that falls, in every frost pattern that forms, in every layer of ice that is laid down, and in every process of melting.  Life is funny, amazing, and beautiful—all three in one.