Photographs taken in Astoria Park, Feb., 2025
The gentle presence of snow is at once calming to the body and enlivening to the spirit. Being from the south, I still — after several years living up north — find snowfall to be a particularly special occurrence. To see a park that was once familiar transformed by a beautiful soft blanket that covers everything the eye can see, it’s easy to compare this visual endlessness with the nature of ones spirit: The spirit does not demand recognition and yet its presence is felt easily when one is quiet; The nature of spirit is lighter than a feather and yet its powerful affect touches every moment of the soul. Walking through the snow, everything becomes softened not only visually, even the sound of distant conversations and cars going by becomes a gentle, dreamlike melody. Times like this remind me once more that your highest self is not found through force but surrender. To move softly through the world, to move within ones own very self, is poetry too pure for articulation.
