Muskoka as Walden
For the past three days, tightly clenched "streamers" have pounded down on South Muskoka, with an unrelenting fury of a winter unfulfilled. The snow has drifted in waist-high waves all along the lane, making it almost impossible to take a dozen steps without employing a shovel to clear a path. The driving snow makes it difficult to see what obstacles have fallen over our winding trail. It is a wicked environs to the passerby. Something of breathtaking beauty to the watcher in the woods. Within even the darkest storm, the most powerful of natural forces, is a characteristic art of life, a sensuality, an ethereal aura that prevails upon us to look upon danger, as we would contemplate throwing ourselves naked into the boiling cataract of a river, knowing the consequences, the gamble, but being unable to reason freely against. The storm compels us to question immortality. Might we survive the undertow? What knowledge and insight would we be thus privileged?
It was one of those storms that makes it clear, from the onset, the safest place is indoors. Branches were being torn off and the decaying trees are gone in part, or completely, flattened down into the bog muck from which they were born. Even in these sanctuary woods, at Birch Hollow, the wind and stinging ice pellets have made this so very inhospitable and dangerous; a tree just a few moments ago came crashing down on the path I walk every day. Yet within this unfurling anger, in our most basic interpretation of nature’s manifestations, is a subtle, dark, natural magnificence that leaves the writer in awe, without a closing paragraph, the artist without a definitive brush stroke to portray the jewel of goodness, in what appears only evil. We can’t help but be burdened by weakness, in assessments, based ignorantly on fear and loathing. Attached to the whipping tail of this tight natural existence, we are pitifully minuscule, and helpless in the grand order...... being nothing more than observers and passengers along for the ride. We can but whimper about the approach of oblivion.......pitted constantly for survival against mother earth and her violent mood swings. If this was the sea, our vessel would be toppled, or sent crashing into the rocks; torn to pieces and cast adrift in the boiling cauldron to wash lifeless on some distant shore We are unlikely to lose our cottage here despite the intensity of the wind rising over the bog. Our ship, for the time being, is secure. There will be a calm beyond the tumult!
For three days we have heard the eerie howl and rush of wind, as if at any moment we should also be sent upwards into the vortex of pelting snow and ice. We have watched the window-panes being dashed by wind-driven ice, and heard the creaking and settling of the timbers in this structure, like the evergreen forest being pounded down into the landscape. It has been an oppressive feeling these past few days, as we have hunkered down by the hearth to warm against the drafts that find their way through the humble abode. We can watch the candlelight flicker on the harvest table, and on the old cupboard near the front window. We have even pulled out the two antique buffalo robes that are kept for posterity in one of the old trunks, by the organ, convenient for such an occasion as this. Both these heavy homestead relics date to the mid 1800's, and were once used in horse-drawn sleighs in our region of Ontario. They have kept us good and warm, as has the steaming hot tea served from the reliable old Brown Betty, the pot that has survived many critical services for the inmates here at Birch Hollow.
Over the past hour there has been a steady decrease in the wind’s velocity, although it is still snowing very heavily at the moment. I must now tend the pathway down to the Birch Hollow lane, before it becomes an even more substantial job later on this afternoon. We might well be buried here if the storm-front continues to swirl overhead. It has been pleasant to sit here at this dusty old keyboard to watch the storm beyond. There is still something enchanting, supernatural about this tumultuous weather that gives the writer so much to ponder about the frailties of mortals, and the longevity and determination of nature to sculpt the earth as she sees fit......and the only success of the author, is to admit with copious observations, that admitted vulnerability, and stewardship of one’s resources, is the only true defense against unflinching reality. The storm is our inspiration to seek survival at any cost......if we truly possess the will.