Snow Lotus: Exploring the Eternal Moment

Snow White and the Timberwolf

Snow White and the Timberwolf Patience, and shuffle the cards. CERVANTES, Don Quixote If you slice an apple in half crosswise, the bisected seed pod will appear as a near-perfect five-pointed star, which is, traditionally , a symbol of immortality. In the proper setting— say, a party where wine has nudged the perceptions of the resident metaphysicians (andaren't we all?)—a demonstration can be dramatic, especially when wielding a big knife. In Celtic myth, apples were representative of immortality via wisdom, so it's not surprising that although the Bookof Genesis doesn't specify which fruit the Serpent convinced Eve and Adam to consume illicitly, subsequent legend insisted it was an apple. And a pentacle—a five-pointed star— 11 represents Satan because he was Lucifer, the morning star, and Satan was also the Serpent. And when Snow White's jealous stepmother attempts to murder the beautiful princess she employs what? A poisoned apple. And though Snow White was laid in a glass coffin, she was awakened by the kiss of the prince, so we discover she was immortal, and the poison could not overcome the inherent nature of the apple with its five-pointed star. And so on. We can weave symbol, legend, and fact ad infinitum, because at one point or another everything's connected in a vast network of meaning. At 3:45P.M. on April Fool's Day, 1994, just after reading an article about the eventual collapse of the sun and inevitable demise of the earth—our living planet is not immortal —The Reverend and I walked down to the frozen shore of Secret Lake. As we stood on the ice—24 inches thick—I recalled from the article that the sun's luminosity is expected to increase by ten percent over the next i.i billion years. That will trigger a runaway greenhouse effect on earth, boiling off the oceans and thus terminating life on the globe as we know it. There's irony in that concept when you're treading on two feet of April ice. I sat on the edge of the dock, its cedar planks recently emerged from the snow drifts that concealed them since November. I was reveling in the first sixty-degree dayof the year, and though the sky was low and hibernal gray, a cordial southwesterly breeze smelled like sunshine. An hour before, I'd actually seen a butterfly. Though the ice sheet could still support the weight of a large truck, I guessed it would be gone in two weeks. Open water is seldom far behind the first butterfly. I gazed down the shoreline to my left, curious about the riot of ravens. That's what had drawn me to the lake. From the house I'd heard the loud cries and sqawking of several ravens. I now counted about twenty. Most were orbiting a finger of bog beyond a point of land that juts off the ridge to the south of the lake. Some were lazily flapping from treetop to treetop among the aspen and black spruce. The whole 12 The Snow Lotus whirling and hopping flock was gradually progressing through the forest, approachingSecret Lake, and I should have realized what was happening. I suppose I was distracted by the seductive touch of that spring breeze. As if to underscore my impression of winter's wake, a shaft of filtered sunlight pierced the overcast and painted a sheen of brightness on the wooded point. A few moments later I saw a German shepherd emerge from the trees, lightly stepping across the bog. My first reaction was irritation: whose damn dogwas that wandering through the forest? Then three more "dogs"—in single file—abruptly appeared. Timberwolves! My heart skipped, and the frame of reference snapped from the mellow, soft-focus appreciation of warmth and butterflies to a keen-edged vigilance. I gaped. The ravens, as they often do, were shadowing a wolf pack. The lead wolf—apparently an alpha male—was huge. Rev weighs about forty-five pounds, and this canine was at least twice his size. Its coat was a dappledgray, brown, and white that readily blended with the part snow/part bare groundof late winter, and if not for its silent motion it would've been difficult to spot against the backdropof forest. But then so was I: downwind and sitting low and still as a stump. The wolves were four...