Day 22: Lovely Desire (#30DaysofBrigid)

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

-Jack Kornfield via Sunday Sabbath: Tiny Desert Flowers

This morning as I stepped outside to gather newly fallen snow to make snow ice cream for my children, the Kornfield quote above kept repeating through my mind. I’ve lived in the woods for almost my entire life. I have seen snow plenty of times, but I cannot ever recall having seen snowflakes like this. In fact, I confess that until a few hours ago I assumed that the only way to take a picture of a real snowflake-shaped-snowflake was with an extreme close up (not an iphone). I’m used to a fine powder snow that is too fine of grain to distinguish separate flakes or a clumpy, wet snow in which no individual flakes are distinguishable either. I am so unfamiliar with the flakes I witnessed today, that when I first saw their starry patterns on my little girl’s hair, I thought, “look, the little grains of snow are clumping together and almost looking like real snowflakes.” When I saw that they were, themselves, real snowflakes, I was exhilarated. I was so excited it was like a genuine miracle to have seen them. Since, I already had my snowboots on, I went down to the woods with my drum and delighted in the snow like I’ve never seen it before. And, in I way, I never have. This is a beauty of taking a sacred pause. We see things that cause our whole lives to change.