The Enchantment of Snow: Tuesday's Reflection

Yes, I know it is an inconvenience. Yes, I know it changes plans and creates delays, and driving in it can be treacherous. And then there is the inevitable shoveling.

But isn't it enchanting? 

That's easy for me to say. I can stay home all day and not venture forth. Our furnace is working, and I am wearing a cozy sweater, but if I need to, I will add a shawl over my shoulders. I have a number of books on deck, including a couple of light English mysteries, my favorite kind of wintry reading, and dinner is appropriate for the day. Homemade mushroom soup. 

I say prayers for those who are not yet home or who need to leave home to go to work that can't be cancelled or to pick up children from school. May all be safe. And then I look out the window again and am almost hypnotized by the white, the mounds forming on bird baths and car roofs, and tree branches. Temporary sculptures. 

I could return to my desk where writing tasks await, and to be fair I spent most of the morning there. I was productive, yes, but I kept glancing out the window for an instant weather report. Yup, still snowing, and a bit more intensely. 

I am enchanted, and Thomas Moore in The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life says, "Enchantment invites us to pause and be arrested by whatever is before us; instead of our doing something, something is done to us. This is the way of the soul, which is primarily the receptive power in us; by letting ourselves be slowed down and affected by nature, we are fashioned into persons of substance, even if at a more active, conscious level we are forcefully engaged in becoming something else."


It is not a matter of allowing ourselves to be enchanted and asking to be enchanted. Rather, enchantment wraps us in its own mystery. Enchantment catches our breath, and we stop in spite of ourselves. 

Enchantment reminds us that once we were children. Enchantment visited us more often then, but I think now that I am nearly 70, I feel the presence of enchantment more. My agenda does not define the day in the same way. I invite enchantment to divert my busy, bustling mind. 

Today it is the snowstorm that enchants me, but other enchantments await tomorrow and on into the coming months. Spring enchantments of new life and green and growth. Summer enchantments of light and freedom and play. Fall enchantments of oranges and golds and harvest fields. And then winter enchantments again--sweaters and candles and yes, snow. And even white tulips on a wintry day. 



An Invitation
What enchants you? I would love to know.