Walking through the forest after a snow, the landscape is muted, a monotone scene of black, gray, and white. Yet it feels so different. It feels like a magical realm, a crystalline cathedral.
I wonder about this. Maybe the snow crystals refract light in a microscopic, barely perceptible way. Maybe something is happening with the snow and the light that is at the fringes of our perception.
Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Snow Queen begins with the magic mirror of a Hobgoblin. It’s a mirror that distorts everything. What is beautiful appears ugly, what is good appears to be worthless. The mirror shatters into a million pieces, and is blown about by the wind. It gets into people’s bodies, and forever distorts what they see.
I think we all have a little sliver of the hobgoblin’s mirror in us. We move through our days with lists and goals and forget to look at the world with wonder. We forget to stay awake to the everyday beauty in the world.
Stay awake, friends! Stay awake!
