Krista Tippett:
Somewhere you say that snow creates a “liminal space, a crossing point between the mundane and the magical.”
Katherine May:
I think snow — what I love about snow is the way that it makes a clean break. It transforms the landscape. Everything’s different. Everything sounds different. The quality of light is different. The light kind of sparkles off it. You know, before you open your curtains, that snow has landed. And for me, I just think that’s such a gift. I know it’s less of a gift if it’s there for five or six months. But it’s a break in the routine. It’s a little bit like a kind of pause. You can’t go about your normal business. School chucks out. But you get to see your world in a different way. And it’s beautiful.
I grew up in quite an unbeautiful place, and snow used to make it beautiful. And I used to absolutely love that. And I now live in a very beautiful place, and snow makes it magical instead, when it comes.
On Being with Krista Tippett, January 21, 2021
Inspired by their conversation for Monday’s blog on Wintering, and given the recent snow and its transformation of so much around me, I had to include Katherine’s poetic rendering here, as Friday’s photo and poem feature.
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A Wabi Sabi Life 
Yes, snow is one of the great transformers and beauty makers. And no one knows that better than those who live in the north. I miss snow. Have to travel up to the mountains to see it . . . and I always will do that because it is part of the fiber of who I am being raised a northerner. Ann Linnea
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Ann, I remember travelling to AZ one spring, driving through Tuscan toward Nogales. We stopped to stretch, to look out onto the western horizon and I muttered to myself that I could never live here, it would dry me out, that I needed the seasons, including the snow. I type this as snow falls and the temperature plummets to below 0 with a windchills significantly lower, as an Arctic front blows down. It takes a hardiness to be a northerner, I think. And a trade-off is the beauty, stillness, and transformation. Thank you for reading, and remarking…
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I think it’s your blog that took me to the ‘On Being’ website just a few weeks ago…mille grazie! What a gem, what wealth of (he)art to plumb especially during these terrible mind-numbing, sometimes fearful, isolating times. It’s there I discovered a new-to-me musician whose work I’m enjoying (Zoe Keating) and a new-to-me poet whose work I’m delving into (David Whyte)…etc etc etc.
And while I may not comment herein, know your posts are something I savor!
Stay safe.
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Laura, I am so happy to meet you here. Thank you and yes, I, too, love Zoe Keating (follow her on Spotify), and of course, David Whyte…a remarkable wordsmith-philosopher. You might enjoy, too, Poetry Unbound hosted by Padraig OTuama, another of OnBeing’s wonderful offerings, and he a brilliant poet-theologian in his own right. Kindest regards, Katharine
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I think snow is my favourite thing….well, one of them 🙂 the description of snow as “a crossing point between the mundane and the magical” is PERFECT. Snow falling on a silent winter’s eve, reading a favourite book in front of a roaring fire with only enough light to ready by……as they say…..priceless.
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Yes, I see from your photo posts how much you love snow. I do, too – the way it transforms, stills and brings a hushed quiet to the world. Especially so when I don’t have to drive in it!!! I miss not having a fireplace…the one regret in our otherwise quite perfect home.
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