The Perfect Wind of the Valley

Rolling hills and snow-coverend mountains - huge evergreen trees and those which have lost their leaves, months ago. None of this landscape could be well captured in a photograph and as much as I try to capture it in a space of my memory, life has taught me that I will hold even that accurate picture only a little while. So, as we drive along through the Appalacian Mountains this Christmas season of 2009, I try to hold in words this picture before me.

The trees bend under the weight of the snow. Trees that have been there, growing through each of the changing seasons through hundreds of years and a few inches of white snow causes them to give way to nature. They bed and bow as if in submission to wahtever may come, in total reverance. They bring me to quiet tears and take my breath away.

Just over another mountain sits a long-ago abandoned barn at the edge of a recently frozen lake and I am reminded of young and old; of things forgotten and those fresh in my memory; my own long-ago abandoned ideas and those which have recently taken hold; things past and those yet to come.

Each of these thoughts circle my mind when Josh Grobin comes on the radio singing the Christmas Carol, "Oh hear the angels sing; Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men" as we drive through the pass - a valley of the mountain range. I feel that God is certainly with us here. The spiritual presence of Mother Nature circles around us in the calm, peace-giving wind. Around my very heart and soul. Around my own body and womb that will someday soon hold in safety my precious child. She is already held in that perfect wind of the valley.

Just before we crossed into North Carolina from Virginia, the horizon in front of us changed and a pink sky emerged atop the mountains before us. We hadn't realized it before, but we had been going up, up, up all along and were now seeminly at the top of the world. The snowdusted landscape lay before us and we could see hundreds of miles in every direction. Could it be symbolic that we don't know we're at the top of the world until we're heading down? We couldn't stop and cherich it any longer; we had to keep moving and were accelerating down. But, oh, to stay in that moment looking off into the distance as far as we could see, to the highest mountain miles and miles away which bridged the space between the snowy valley and pink afternoon sky - oh, to capture forever that beautiful sight! Carpe Diem! yes, Longfellow, "Act that each tomorrow might find us further than today" - but, we must also remember to just stop and relish today. This spot. This moment in the clouds.