Fifty-four days until Spring.

I live in New England. Fifty-four days translates to a lifetime when the thermometer reads eight degrees and the sun begins its descent in my afternoon. It’s a mighty long month this January, with a long march ahead to the days of no coats, hats, socks…Turn, turn, turn.

I find my self drifting back to an August afternoon along the coast of Maine. Layers were not a factor in this time and space. Blue skies. Eighty-five degrees. Endless afternoons. The song sang itself in this season—a time I embrace. A few images I recorded in that bliss are scattered here upon my canvas. So very soothing.

The perfect antidote to the arctic setting in which I presently dwell.

But, back to January which is where life finds me and where I must somehow make peace. On this afternoon, can I reconcile these two dramatically different seasons? Each bears its own glorious prana. Somehow, might I mirror their splendor and embrace the beauty of this chill?

As often is the case, my camera holds the clue. And so I follow…

Thursday morning. My interest not quite here. Thermometer in the single digits. Little sun. Freezing. Gray color cast over the land. Yet, the dullness lugs with it a certain mysterious quality softening some of the winter’s decay. Upon a second take, a muted silhouette of the sun? How humble as it rests backstage.  

Early again. A complete spike in temperature. So out of season. Once more, little evidence of the sun. A swamp like quality to this Friday dawn. The elevated moisture brews a mystical fog. It’s opacity buries the spare landscape.  Dream-like morning. Perhaps elegant?

Frigid Sunday. Full throttle winter. Great drama in the roaring snowfall. Suddenly eager to document this freshly bleached landscape. A tribe of Pines rebounding up from the white blanket to greet the sky’s blast. No coats, not hats. No complaints from their lips.Their needles catch the flakes mirroring back the drowning sun’s shimmer.  

So, now here I sit with the evidence—the pictures I have made in this inconvenient season. The images of this portion of the calendar which I resist take their place alongside my beloved summer. Two very contrasting series of photographs shout to me, “To everything there is a season.”  I attempt to weave them into one.

January meet August.

As I allow this meditation to unfold, in time the images begin to fade into one another as the seasons naturally do.

The blessings of winter rise to the surface and I salute the season…

 

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Editor: Bryonie Wise