This is for "White Dog"

Another Facebook post prompts another blog entry...

Here's what a friend posted this morning;

"Another 10cm of snow last night what's that about 1000cm for the winter !! I'm done with winter it can leave now !!!!!"

Well, I'm quite sure, that not withstanding the ever so slight exaggeration, many of us have similar thoughts! It's been quite the winter! An early start, much snow, and the plummeting temperatures have made this season one for the record books, a test of patience and of resources. 


It's not over...

If one were to personify this winter, this season seems to be a bully! Muscling its way into the year, forcing autumn off the playground; taking away our joys, compelling us with mean-spiritedness to seek shelter from its cutting winds... and causing us to tremble. Trembling not from fear, but from its icy touch!

  

As a child I suffered bullying, most of us did. I despised, maybe even hated those schoolyard thugs! But I was given some resources to deal with them, and some thoughts about my loathings. 

One day, after a run-in with a local goon, my Mum said to me that someone, probably their mother, loves that person for some reason or another. She told me to look for that reason. So I did. That was a great piece of advice for a twelve-year-old! My hatred soon turned to feeling sorrowful for the bully. 


After having aged, gained experience and having met many scores of people throughout the world; one in ten being a sociopath, one in maybe a hundred a psychopath; I've learned that not all bullies are even loved by their mothers! In fact, some mothers hate themselves for having created such a bully!

But we do learn lessons from bullying. A lot of our social skills can be attributed to bullying; we learn tact, patience, we even discover navigation! How to navigate a conversation so as not to rub a bully the wrong way, and in the worst case scenario, how to get home via a different route and avoid the bully altogether.

In my case though, I also learnt compassion. 

But this winter has been such a bully! And the only way I can think of dealing with it is by using my Mum's words... But paraphrased... 

Winter's mother loves winter!

Mother Nature truly loves Winter! Mother Nature sees that Winter's harsh words and heavy handedness are not because Winter isn't caring or thoughtless. It's because Winter is not capable of acting in any other way. Mother Nature has given Winter the task of cleaning up after Summer and Fall, and to protect Spring's sleep. Winter will withdraw its heavy hand and icy stare from all the others in the forest when Spring is ready to awaken from that deep slumber. 

So how am I going to deal with winter? 

You cannot talk to Winter.

My feelings are inconsequential; Winter cares not for me.

I haven't the financial resources to steer clear of Winter. So navigation means I must walk and drive with care.

So I will look for those reasons that Mother Nature loves Winter so much. I will look for Winter's saving graces. I will find, and  appreciate Winter's effectiveness, Winter's contribution, Winter's... BEAUTY!

One last word on winter...

"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth fruit." 

St. John the Apostle, Chapter 15, verse 2, KJV 

If White Dog is still with us, St. John's words will always be in her mouth...









  

Discovery...

I discovered an unusual website yesterday. It intrigued me. So I wandered around a little on it.

My path to it was a little whimsical, yet also a bit melancholy; Somewhat reflective of my mindset, present mood, and the attitude I find myself gripped by at this time. 

We'll start with one odd, obscure, little word...

Basorexia.

(n.) The overwhelming desire to kiss.

Comical in a sense, yet pathological in another.


The word piqued my curiosity though. I suffer from it, I admit that. But not because I have to kiss, but because of who I want to kiss! 



Yes, Aimee sent me the word; my closest companion, love of my life, dearest friend!

So, back to this winding digital path. From there I found the word "sonder." From there...

Vemodalen...

And THEN, liberosis!

They're all interesting words. Liberosis though is the only one which I would have been able to define, at least to a point. It's an interesting word. It's roots are easily researched, defined and underscored.

Liber and osis.

Osis is of course a functional disease or condition.

Liber finds its origins in the classic-romantic languages, English not being one of them!

Liber; freedom, French. Libre; balance, Spanish.

The symbol for the English pound is an L, crossed; balance. Of course we have the zodiac sign of Libra or the Balances.

"L"a symbol of balance or, better yet, equality... and value.


So my strange delving took me to this definition;

Liberosis;

the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully...

  The fear of losing one's freedom because the cares of this world seem too daunting...

I'm a walker, a hunter, a gatherer, a wanderer and traveler. I always look forward, backward AND from side to side. As I walk I also take photos. I take lots of photos. I have files and files of photos on my computer. I have albums and boxes filled with prints, negs and slides! I hope each new image will capture something new, something memorable, something unique. But quite often this is not the case!

Vemodalen!

 the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.

That's one sobering word! Especially for a landscape photographer like me.

So then we come back to that second little gem of a word...

Sonder... 

 the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

For those in our midst who are "micro managers" or worse, narcissists, this must be a terrible feeling!