Thursday, February 18, 2010

Snow Brings Water To Life

I walked abroad in a snowy day;
I asked the soft snow for me to play.
She played and she melted in all her prime,
And the winter called it a dreadful crime.


William Blake wrote the poem Soft Snow at the turn of the 19th century. Blake was ignored most of his life. A group of inspiring artists found his work right before his death in 1827, and feel in love with it. The scope and depth of his work has been dissected, analyzed, and studied over the years, because he projected his innate self in his work. Soft Snow is not only brilliant rhyme, it’s enchanting mysticism. The ability to sense the snow being born as a unique form of consciousness is very obvious in the poem. Unique flakes of snow bring water to life, and it blankets the ground with diversity. Nature applauds her arrival, but we treat her with mixed emotions.

Snow, like other natural forms of consciousness, tests our ability to connect with a self that wants to play and enjoy each experience. We treat her like a menace when she brings more play than we expect, and we are annoyed when she doesn’t show up when and where she’s expected. We judge, curse and hate her for her indulgences, and miss her when she confines herself to the mountaintops. We scold her when she turns to ice, but praise and admire her when she becomes an iceberg. If she is too big we fear her; if she is aggressive we hide from her. We applaud her for melting, and ignore her as she does. We create a snow filled life in a world filled with her consciousness. It's a dreadful crime filled with the ingredients of our separated mind.

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