the cassandra pages

Shavuot, Beltane, Pentecost and Whitsun: the evolution of traditions and language

Icon of the Pentecost, Russian, 16th century.

 

“The king stablished all his knights, and gave them that were of lands not rich, he gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrageousity nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no mean to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship of King Arthur for evermore; and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succor upon pain of death. Also, that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no world’s goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost.” (Le Morte d'Arthur, pp 115-116)

Yesterday was Pentecost, a major feast day in the Anglican Church. It falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter, and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples after Jesus' death. In Greek, Pentecost means "the fiftieth [day]" and originally refered to an ancient, historical Jewish festival commemorating the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In modern Judaism this festival is called Shavuot.

 As had happened with the Jewish festival, in early Christian England, the theological observance of Pentecost was conflated with already-existing pagan ritual of Beltane. In the Arthurian legends, not only did the King have his knights swear their most solemn oaths on the day of Pentecost, he also refused to go into the dining hall until he had seen some miracle or wonder; it's one of the ways that Arthur's other-worldliness and spiritual leadership is shown in the legends, in contrast to Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery, as well as some of the other knight's acts.

In later England, though, Pentecost was more often called Whitsun, or Whitsunday. The Wikipedia has a good entry on the possible etymology of the name "Whitsun", or "White Sunday", in the late Middle Ages, and on the possible conflation of "whit" (white) and "wit" (understanding) :

"The name is a contraction of "White Sunday", attested in "The Holy-Ghost, which thou did send on Whit-Sunday" in the old English homilies, and parallel to the mention of hwitmonedei in the early 13th-century Ancrene Riwle. Walter William Skeat noted that the Anglo-Saxon word also appears in Icelandic hvitasunnu-dagr, but that in English the feast was always called Pentecoste until after the Norman Conquest,  when white (hwitte) began to be confused with wit or understanding. According to one interpretation, the name derives from the white garments worn by catechumens, those expecting to be baptised on that Sunday. Moreover, in England, rather than the more usual red, were traditional for the day and its octave. A different tradition is that of the young women of the parish all coming to church or chapel in new white dresses on that day. However, Augustinian canon, John Mirk (c1382 - 1414), of Lilleshall Abbey, Shropshire, had another interpretation:

Good men and wimmen, this day (Dies Penthecostes) is called Wytsonday by cause the holy ghost bought wytte and wisdom into Crists dyscyples, and so by prechying after in all Cristendom and fylled him full of holy Wytte

Thus, he thought the root of the word was "wit" (formerly spelt "wyt" or "wytte") and Pentecost was so-called to signify the outpouring of the wisdom of the Holy Ghost on Christ's disciples."

However, today the liturgical color for Pentecost in our tradition is red: red for the "tongues of flame" that supposedly showed the presence of the Holy Spirit. Lots of parishioners, too, wear red on that day. Yesterday we had a liturgical dance by the kids, carrying trailing "flames" of yellow, orange and gold transparent cloth, three baptisms, and we sang a lot of special music - more about that later. I've never been too keen on the idea that the "Spirit" only appeared in the world at that time, and only to these early Christians, so I was happy that our Dean preached about the Spirit being present to all human beings, of all creeds and none, from the beginning of time. He also made a point of calling it "Her."

--

For our part, we had two services filled with music, much of it for eight-part double choir. In the morning we sang a terrific unaccompanied contemporary mass setting, the Missa "Cantate," by Bob Chilcott (unfortunately no recordings or videos of this that I could find.) It ends with an Agnus Dei written with aleotoric sections: that's where the singers are some instructions but then asked to improvise or repeat it individually and freely according to certain restrictions: these may be a set of notes or a specific phrase, and a time period. We then "gather" on a specified note at the director's instruction, and move on to the next section, which may be written out conventionally, or proceed to another set of instructions.

The effects created can be absolutely mesmerizing: murmuring sound clusters, voices emerging out of a cloud of sound, repeated words, created musical "atmospheres" in a less defined progression than usual, that invite a different type of listening experience: sometimes meditative and minimalistic, sometimes surprising, sometimes eerie, often emotional. I had never seen scores like this before joining this choir, and was really intimidated when I first had to perform them but quickly became fascinated. It was, as you can perhaps imagine, perfect for Pentecost.

We also performed another aleotoric piece, this one written by our own director, Patrick Wedd, for a Vancouver choral festival, on the Pentecost text (and one of the oldest hymns of the Christian church), Veni Creator Spiritus. Patrick's piece is almost all aleotoric, with certain voice parts singing the hymn, while others improvise on sets of given notes in the key of B-flat major. But in addition to the voices, the piece also includes a score for handbells: in this case, all the bells in the key of B-flat major. We have a beautiful multiple-octave set of Whitechapel handbells at the cathedral, and use them every week for the psalm chants, but not so often as part of other music. I like playing them (being an old instrumentalist at heart) so I had fun trying to coordinate my bell, the hand-written score, and my improvisational vocal part, while keeping an eye on the director and trying to turn pages and not drop anything -- my expensive bell in particular. Maybe one day we'll have a recording of this piece that I can share with you; I think it came off pretty well.

Drawing #15, Meditation Space

On the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, I facilitate a meditation/contemplative prayer group at the cathedral. This particular chapel is normally used for weekday eucharists and the 8:00 service on Sunday mornings; the altar is to the left of this picture, and usually there are about two dozen chairs set up in rows facing it. On Tuesdays I go in early to rearrange the room -- we move the heavy iron kneelers with a hand truck, and put down a plain white cotton carpet, set twelve chairs around it and move the others to the sides, and place a large candle - I bought this one from nuns in Mexico -  on a low table in the center. After the daily office of Evening Prayer is finished at 5:45 pm, we turn down the lights and gather in this room; I usually give a brief talk or a reading or a guided meditation, and then we sit in silence for two periods of 20 minutes, with a brief break so that people who want to sit for a shorter period can leave. At the end we leave in silence, with a few people staying to help me put the room back into its normal configuration.

This week I had a little extra time beforehand, so I sat down and made a sketch, and then added some color later. One thing I'm discovering during this month is that I simply don't enjoy detailed, careful architectural sketching. Catching the feeling of a place is one thing, but I don't have the patience, inclination, or interest to do it perfectly. More power to those who do! (I didn't think I did, but now I know it for sure!) In fact, I'd like to try a charcoal or pastel drawing of this same space, to try to get the dusky ambience of it as the sun is setting.

During our meditation this week we had so many interruptions! There are the inevitable sirens and honking horns and loud voices from the street outside;  the verger mistakenly turned the lights up when they should have been turned down; then there was a businessman, with briefcase and cellphone, who came into the church from the side door opposite us, couldn't get through the passageway to the back that leads to the diocesan offices, and proceeded to make a loud phone call expressing his annoyance and frustration to whoever was on the other end. Apparently he didn't see, or didn't look to see, that people were silently meditating across from him. One of us got up and helped him, gently ushering him outside and pointing him where he needed to go. In spite of all that, this week's gathering had a very good feeling: calm and deep, with a sense of the collective peace that sometimes comes from a group meditating together.

Interruptions are, as the Buddhists would say, "grist for the mill." They are the weeds in our practice, and one learns to be grateful for them, and for what they teach us. When I was beginning my own meditation practice, back in Vermont many years ago, it used to drive me crazy to hear the neighbor's lawn mower, or children's voices playing in the street. Now I'm rather glad that we don't meet in a retreat center set far away from "the world," but rather right in the middle of it, on the busy main street of a major city. Meditating in this sort of place teaches us that we too are part of the world, and the world is part of us. As Thomas Merton wrote: "One does not go into the desert to escape others, but to learn how to find them."

 

A Plea Against Anxiety

Yesterday morning I sat in the waiting room of the clinic where I have my annual medical exams. Something had changed since my last visit: a huge black television monitor occupied one wall, with the channel tuned to CNN.

It was impossible to ignore; the small waiting room had been turned into a screening room, where even patients who didn't want to watch were forced to listen. In the space of just a few minutes, I heard commentators speculate that this might be the day that North Korea decided to launch a missle. I heard reports of a new, deadly strain of bird flu in China, and an outbreak of meningitis among gay men in Los Angeles.  There was discouraging discussion about the gun control bill, and a story that parents in Japan are starting to refuse to allow their children to come to the U.S. for university study, because of a perception that the country is becoming too dangerous.

A white-coated tecnician came into the room to get a cup of coffee just as the meningitis story was playing; the screen showed large electron-micrographs as the journalist's voice intoned the latest statistics. Oh dear, said the man, turning to me with a dismayed look on his face. He stood for a few minutes, riveted to the screen, and then walked out the door to begin his day.

My doctor came to the door and called my name; I was glad to escape. But during the morning I had to come back to the waiting room several times, between visits to the nurse for blood work, an EKG, and various other appointments. Each time, I watched the behavior of the other people in the room, all of whom would turn to face the TV, shaking their heads at each grim, frightening story. Last year, most of them were absorbed in their cell phones. I looked for a magazine or newspaper; unlike former visits, this time there was only one, an old issue of Vanity Fair; instead I pulled a book out of my pack, but it was very difficult to concentrate on the words.

Finally I turned to one of the other women and said, "I'm American, and really, this is part of what I came to Canada to escape."

As it turned out, she was originally American too, from North Carolina, but we had a pretty different take on things. She was conservative, I more liberal. While I objected to being force-fed anxiety by inflammatory stories in the media, she insisted it was "important to be informed." "I'm really worried when I go to the U.S. now," she said. "If I go to a shopping center across the border I really look around me at the people; it seems like anything could happen. Everyone has guns." Well, yes, I agreed, many people do, and I think that's a big problem. But you have to look at the statistics as well; your chance of being killed in a Wal-Mart in Burlington, Vermont, is not extremely high.

We both finished our appointments and went home, where in the afternoon we learned what had happened in Boston, and the cycle of horror, speculation, analysis, and fear began spinning all over again.

I don't want to add yet another voice to that sad and mostly-well-meant cacophony. I've spent many days of my life in Boston, and my heart goes out to the people of that city. If there is something concrete I can do to help, I will do it.

What I've been thinking about is the television in the waiting room, a Canadian waiting room, that once was a quiet place where people read, or talked to a companion, or even simply sat and looked out the window. Its presence seems to me an ominous symbol of something that has gone very wrong in most western societies: our inability to be with ourselves, to cope with the essential human condition of solitude, especially in situations that cause our anxiety to rise. It concerns me that, in our secular, post-liberal-arts, technological, perpetually-connected society, so little effort goes into teaching children how to be alone, showing them the richness and solace of time spent with nature, with the arts and handcrafts, with books and music, with oneself walking in a city or sitting on a bench: eyes open, ears open, mind and heart awake to the dance of life flowing around us.

When I return to the United States, as I did just last week, I'm always struck by the palpable level of general anxiety, so much greater than it is here in Quebec. But is that anxiety, and the corresponding reactiveness -- even in the wake of tragedies such as have been experienced in the past decade -- justified? In today's New York Times, University of Maryland criminologist Gary LaFree states, “I think people are actually surprised when they learn that there’s been a steady decline in terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 1970.” Speaking of both domestic and foreign plots, he noted that there were approximately 40 percent fewer attacks in America during the ten years after 9/11 than there had been in the previous decade. (LaFree is director of the highly-regarded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which studies terrorism and keep a Global Terrorism Database. He adds a note that nearly half the worldwide attacks, and 1/3 of those in the U.S., have never been solved.)

However, I think the media bears a large responsibility for fanning the flames of American anxiety.  Supposed neutral channels like CNN feed viewers an endless diet of anxiety-producing stories, while the left and right square off in loud, combative talk shows and news hours, each side trying to out-shout the other. Television is a very powerful medium. Is it any wonder that so many people feel under attack, vulnerable, and constantly anxious, worrying about what is going to happen to them or to their loved ones? It it any wonder that they feel like the entire world is taking sides, at war, that it's us-against-them, myself against the potential unknown assalilant, intruder, terrorist, crazy person lurking in every community? Furthermore, we know that violence begets violence, that copycat crimes proliferate, and that what a lot of perpetrators want the most is publicity.

If the U.S. wants to worry about drugs and terrorism slipping across its porous northern border, then I am concerned about the insidious infiltration of this kind of secular preaching, these incessant sermons of anxiety and fear originating from the south. And much more than that, I wonder if those of us who have chosen to live our lives differently can perhaps be more vocal and intentional about why, and how. The world has always been dangerous for a vast majority of its citizens, but we in the west have been able to ignore that too long. Living positively, with awareness and joy in each day -- in spite of the possibility of death, which can and does happen anywhere, anytime -- is actually possible, as our brothers and sisters in war-torn, poverty-ravaged societies can teach us. And to look closer to home on this sad day: who knows better the fullness of solitude, or the potential triumph of the human spirit, than the long-distance runner?

Happy Easter

It's Easter Monday and spring has finally started in Montreal. Most of the snow is gone, the sky is brighter, and the first shoots are poking up through the soggy earth. Yesterday, as I arrived very early at church to begin a long day of singing, I was greeted by a patch of purple crocuses in the lawn: not open yet, but unmistakable. Even color might make its way to this grey northern city before long!

During Holy Week I struggled with resistance to the focus on tragedy and suffering. Some years the difficult part of the story is actually fruitful for me, but this year that wasn't the case. It took all the way through Saturday before I figured it out -- and for that I had to go back to Mexico.

On Good Friday, I sat in the baptistry, trying to meditate between our musical responsibilities, and -- bizarrely, I thought -- all that came to me was the image of people dancing in a park in Mexico City. We had gone to visit the handicraft market at La Ciudadela, where I took the picture at the top of this post. I walked around the entire vast market, looking at pierced tin stars and embroidered blouses, blown glassware and painted tiles, whimsical painted wooden animals from Oaxaca, colorful sombreros and woven rugs. Finally I returned to this young woman's stand, drawn back by the colors and careful Indian handwork and unique embroidery styles of the bags she was selling. After we talked with her and bought a few pouches to take home as gifts, we walked out into the nearby park, where salsa music was playing.

The park was full of people, from babies in arms to the very elderly. A lot of them were dancing. And not just fooling around: these were people who knew how to dance, and looked like they'd been doing it their entire lives. It was a neighborhood event. The atmosphere was completely relaxed; everyone was out, enjoying themselves. Was it a special day, we wondered? No, we found out - this happens every Saturday in this barrio. Other neighborhoods do it on different days or evenings, so if you are really into salsa, you can go around and dance just about every day!

The feeling was so happy, it was infectious. J. wandered around with his camera, and I stood on the edge, smiling, moving in time to the music, watching the joy of the people dancing so beautifully under the violet jacarandas.

There was a shrine of flowers and an image of the Virgin that had been put up in a tree (see the arrow at upper left). This, we found, is pretty typical. Religion is everywhere; it's as much a part of ordinary life as air or food. Homemade shrines with figures of saints, candles, flowers and sometimes incense are just as likely to be found on a streetcorner or near the entrance to a shop as in a church or park; as people pass by, they notice, and some cross themselves. The Virgin of Guadaloupe, in particular, seems to hover over the daily life of the city, protecting and watching the dance of life.

I had been standing there for fifteen minutes or so when this elderly gentleman appeared in front of me, holding out his hand. It took me a moment to realize he was asking me to dance - the last thing I had expected to happen, though maybe it had been obvious that I really wanted to try! I smiled and lifted my shoulders and eyebrows, miming to him that I was pleased but didn't know how. He shrugged, an elegant and eloquent Latin shrug, and swept one hand toward the dance floor: Don't worry, I'll show you. I smiled and took his hand. We danced: I clumsily, he delightfully; his friends on the sidelines clapped and smiled encouragment as I looked over, laughing and happy. When the dance finished he bowed to me and I thanked him, and then his friend took my hand for another dance, their warmth and generosity something I won't forget.

My former rector and friend, the Rev. Canon Henry Atkins, had a number of colorful souvenirs from his years in Latin America on the desk and walls of his office. He had worked as a priest in El Salvador during some of the most difficult years; he had known Archbishops Oscar Romero and Arturo Rivera. I asked him about these tokens once, thinking he must have some tragic memories. He smiled. "You know," he said, "I went to Latin America thinking the people there would teach me about suffering. In fact, they taught me about joy."

--

When we returned home and got on the airport bus to ride back to Montreal, I looked around at the snow and ice, and the grim silent faces of the other passengers, dressed in their black and grey coats. Across from me was a Mexican woman, about my age; I overheard her son-in-law explaining to someone that he was picking her up for an extended stay here, where he and her daughter and their children lived. The woman had on a warm coat in a beautiful shade of aqua, and she too was looking around, bewildered. I thought about the Mexican equivalent: a crowded and noisy bus or metro car, filled to overflowing with color and music and people selling things, a natural extension of the vibrant, chaotic, and entirely real life on the streets. By comparison, she -- and I -- had just landed in a frozen, monochromatic, silent world. It felt so ridiculous I almost burst out laughing. What are we doing to ourselves?

So, yes, in the affluent north, we do need to be reminded of the suffering and poverty and violence of much of the world. Actually, though, we're pretty good at feeling guilty and miserable. We have a lot more to learn about how to be truly happy, about how to live fully, how to appreciate the simple beauty that life presents every single day, how to embrace each moment and each other -- especially each other. This week, as I sang, I knew in every vibrating part of my body the joy that comes not just from the arts but from giving your best effort, and from doing something with other people for a greater goal. That makes me so happy - in spite of the fatigue, the concentration, the late nights - that I experienced joy as the dominant emotion, joy in the midst of a story of immense suffering.

And that's the thing. The ultimate Gospel message isn't one of death, but resurrection. Whether you interpret that literally or symbolically, the point is not to stay at the foot of that cross, or the crosses that we all bear, but to live and to love, learning to see that new life can happen, in spite of great difficulties, every moment of every day.

Saturday

The Black Christ at the Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City

 

Holy Saturday
hangs suspended: poignancy
played by an oboe.

Holy Week 2013

(Note: potentially disturbing image below.)

I don't yet have my head around Holy Week.

On Palm Sunday, during the Mass, there was a dramatization of the passion story - a Passion Play -- instead of a sermon. It was beautifully done, and very moving while it was happening.

Tuesday night I led the contemplation group, giving a talk on the various faiths' uses of, and resistance to, bowing, and prostration. (Our priests prostrate themselves on the altar on Good Friday, and at no other time during the year.) I talked about what those practices mean in a mystical sense, and that was followed by forty minutes of silent meditation. Then I joined the choir to sang Compline -- it was a service using Orthodox chant, ending with the Russian Kontakion for the Departed.

Last night, Wednesday, was Tenebrae: the church lit by one candelabrum, one candle extinguished after each psalm, after the Lamentations of Jeremiah, after yet another psalm, until we were all in darkness. Silence. Then a sudden noise, to represent the earth quaking at the death of Jesus. And finally a single candle in the darkness, by whose light we departed.

And tonight, the mass for Maundy Thursday. But still, I am not "in" Holy Week.

How many years have I been doing this -- attending most of the services, singing, listening to the story over and over, presented in different ways, in words, music, dance, drama? As an adult, at least twenty-five. Sometimes it happens: something breaks through the numbness and repetition and locks its fingers around my heart, and when the grip slowly releases, there's a new insight, connecting this story of suffering and acceptance to my own life or the world at large in a new way.

And sometimes it's like this year so far: an intellectual and artistic engagement that remains detached in spite of my desire for it to be otherwise.

Perhaps my Holy Week came earlier in the month, when I was in the cathedral and smaller shrines and churches of Mexico City, astounded by a much more visceral and literal expression of faith and of Christ's agony: in every one of those churches there is a lifesize, lifelike Christ, beautifully carved and painted, with open eyes that look at you, and wounds that drip with blood: He is Everyman, your son - father - lover - husband  - who was killed, and who now gazes at you with sadness and compassion. In Latin America those connections are unfortunately easy to make; not so much here in the north, where we can argue with ourselves and with theology about the nature of this kind of suffering, sometimes for an entire lifetime, without much first-hand experience. And yet violence, imprisonment, oppression and killing because of politics, religion, outspokenness against authority, and all kinds of Otherness, go on in our world every single day. These statues shocked me with their realism. It would be much easier to look away -- but you can't.

Christ holding a stalk of corn, in the Catedral Metropolitana, Mexico City

During these three days that is what I feel not just called to contemplate, but to face. Holy Week and Easter are not so much about faith for me -- faith in the Resurrection, or literal faith in accounts of ancient events. Those are other matters that I think about a lot all year long. Nor is it, as for many Christians of a more evangelical bent, primarily a time of sorrow and catharsis about the death of one particular man. Holy Week, for me, is more about justice, and my own complicity in the systems of power and repression, of militarization, rampant capitalism and globalization. But even more than that it's about my forgetfulness the other 362 days of the year.

Usually a moment comes when I drop my defenses, and I'm there, fully there. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe tonight.

People .1

Diners at their 3:00 pm main meal, which can go on until 5 or later.

Schoolgirls.

Two women with roses.

A young professional, after work.

Hip kid at the Zócalo, Metropolitan Cathedral in the background.

 

Adios

Everyone warned us about the altitude, the pollution, the potential for theft or worse, illness, squalor, traffic. All have been, in our experience, exaggerations. It's a huge city with a lot of poverty and problems, and yes, you have to be careful. But I have not felt afraid, and I think I have pretty good antennae now for those sorts of urban threats. Except for a little awareness of the altitude the first day, breathing hasn't been a problem at all; in fact the air has been clear enough that we've been able to see the stars every night from our hotel window. I know it's not always that way, but while we've been here the air quality has been fine. There are sweepers and cleaners everywhere; when you consider what it actually copes with, Mexico City seems cleaner in many ways than Montreal. The traffic is tremendous, but somehow it works, people manage to cross streets, the subway is efficient, the buses run.

We leave tomorrow night, late, and it will be reluctantly - both because I'm dreading going back to what sounds like horrible weather in Montreal, but more so because each day this astonishingly vibrant and beautiful city, with the oldest history in all the Americas and -- most of all -- some of the warmest people I've ever encounted when traveling, have lodged deeper in my heart. I am way behind in writing and about what's happened, and will continue after we get home, and I've made no drawings at all -- but that's because I wanted to see and experience as much as I could rather than sitting in one place.

There's a lot to think about, too. This trip couldn't have been more different from our visit to Iceland last year, but the seismic activity both places share seems to have shaken me once again; I'm coming back changed, with wider eyes, and a broader abyss in my soul, cleft by the people I've encountered. If one picture I've taken encapsulates how I've felt, perhaps it's the one at the top of this page. I know I will carry the beautiful faces of the Mexican children with me until I come back; they've touched me again and again.

Celebrating Epiphany in Music and Words

Sassetta, Journey of the Magi, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1435

This Sunday we'll be singing our third and final Lessons&Carols service of the season, in celebration of Epiphany.

Sunday's Evensong will also include familiar hymns and readings, both of the relevant scriptural passages and some innovative poetry selections. I will, in fact, be reading Gerard Manley Hopkins' "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection" -- a rather daunting prospect for which I am practicing! Here's a link to an audio recording I made of the poem:

Download Heraclitean fire_2

Jan Brueghel, Adoration of the Magi, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

A man in our parish keeps a music calendar for the cathedral's services, and publishes it on the web; it includes beautiful art appropriate to the time of the liturgical year, and a full list of the music to be performed with links to online audio, and information about composers and writers of texts. I know it is his labor of love, but I appreciate it so much, and doubt think he gets the recognition his effort deserves! Anyway, here is his listing for Sunday's music, which will be streamed live on Radio Ville-Marie at 4:00 pm Eastern Time (for listeners in the UK, we are five hours different, so that's 9 pm your time.) I hope the whole service will fit within the one hour limit of the broadcast, but if not, you will still hear most of it. (Click the arrow in the blue band at the bottom right of the screen banner, where it says "Nous écouter en direct.")

Flock

I've given more crumbs

to the huddled snowy birds

than coins to beggars.

---

Snow day. Almost a blizzard - what's the definition of a blizzard, anyway? if it's blowing and drifting snow and very low visibility, we have that. I've been watching the sparrows on the terrace, the way they flock when startled by a human shadow behind the curtains, or a monstrous yellow plow going by; the way they settle back down, hunched up, fluffy, on the terracotta pot rims and copper planter, on the trellis; the way they've left their dance-steps in the snow above the golden crumbs.

I've needed a quiet day like this. In the morning, before it was fully light, I did my meditation, and then listened to Radio Bartok: a string of classical recordings punctuated by the murmur of voices in Hungarian, undecipherable and therefore relegated gratefully to the background of my mind. All the while, the snow billowed in white veils between me and the trees, while the sparrows hopped and fed and hung in the bare branches of the hedge, moving like the music across a scene rendered in white and sepia.

Most of all, I realize I need a break from the computer. I want things to move more slowly for a few days, and to pay attention to the world in front of my eyes, the real world: the icy crystals that shiver and shrink under my warm hand, the prick of the evergreen needles, the heft of a book, the voices of the little birds reassuring each other, and the howl of the wind.