A Sky Full of Feathers

"But as touching the feathers whereof the Scythians say that the air is full, insomuch that none can see or traverse the land beyond, I hold this opinion." - Herodotus, in Histories, 5th Century BC

It has snowed. I am once again finding myself becoming aware of admiring the snow in different forms. It's been on the top of my list of blog posts I want to write: it also feels like the universe is offering me a great chance to take a deep plunge into its layers.

I love snow. How deep can we plunge?

           Someone in class calls a snowflake a "snowflower" instead. It's instantly endearing. Through the new word a newfound interest for the singular snow particle, itself a combination of molecules appears.

As I'm leaving school the snowploughs are on the move. I watch, just as I followed them from the windows of my childhood home since a very early, diaper age (based on what I'm told and vaguely remember). There is something mesmerizing about the action. The ploughs twist and turn, moving snow, putting it aside, loading it and piling it. There are variations in the style, in the vehicles used for it and the shapes of the ploughs. Some are V-shaped, sometimes inverted, affecting if the snow gathers within the plough or rather if it glides to the sides, separating at the tip of the blade. The inverted V is more of a thing I noticed as a child. Now they seem more uniform, with many standard models of tractors (Wille for example) that seemingly have gained much ground. The ploughs also seem to usually be in one diagonal, oblique line. I would have a small moment of mixed joy and nostalgia if I'd see snow separating in a continuous motion from the tip of the reversed V-shape plow. 

       Wille-tractor on the move!           

The Wille tractors are very nimble and agile due to their design, which makes it possible to articulate the hind parts and front of the trunk around the cockpit in a jackknife-like way. 

An attempt to communicate what I'm talking about, the axis of movement through image. There's a reason I didn't get into fine arts or engineering.

                                                   It reminds me of the shape of an ant. Nature is the mother of invention.

I have been trying to puzzle out why I pause to look at tractors plowing and how to translate it through language. A term which popped out of an essay in a previous reading seminar about dramaturgy, "free radicals" feels fit with the action of snowplowing tractors. David Pledger, an Australian artist and director, brings it forth in his essay Concentric Circles of Dramaturgy. For me, it translates into how the snowplows disrupt the usual traffic choreographies of the cities:

They maneuver around traffic lights and lamp posts, cross the streets, drive on pedestrian sidewalks and change the landscape. 

Snowplows carefully twist and turn, mechanically dancing in the process of curating snow in strategic locations, out of the beaten paths. The snow piles also tell us what is prioritized. A constant set design on the city level, if you may. Once they get too big, along the most central roads or focal nodes of transport, they're loaded on trucks and transported to a snow dump. 

With their arms extending from the tractor to the plow, with the human operating through levers in the cockpit, it's the closest one comes in everyday urban hustle to Transformers, cyborgs or Neon Genesis Evangelion.

   Snow ploughers might feel a bit like mecha pilots, I imagine. Or am I making it too much in my image?

As of now, the courses at the university have changed. Today we started a course on Expanded dramaturgies. Since it's my first day, I'm not very wise yet except for expectations. Our first task is to observe and sense weather. It's -8° celsius and the snow has stayed and accumulated since the end of December. Snow takes a huge part of both mine, but also other's weather observations in a debrief afterwards. 

"Zooming into a point that is not a vertex may cause the curve to rotate." - A mathematical language I linguistically have difficulty comprehending, while intuitively appreciating the aesthetic logic of geometry!

I have been observing snow on my explorations lately, to be able to pinpoint it in a verbal form. I take steps on the snow-covered roof terrace at the university. First I perceive it through my feet: The snow crunches beneath my soles, both a physical, tactile sensation and an auditory sensation. My next memory is a visual one: the untouched snow bank in the middle. Then I travel in the footsteps of someone before me, since it's easier and keeps my shoes dry. Due to the weather, and only starting the time spent outside, one has to make strategical choices in actions, I preserve activities that risk getting wet (and thus cold) for later. 

Paths of movement appear with time. The snowfall affects how we move, occasionally forcing us to take different routes on our way to familiar places. Some areas get more trodden and it's as if movement through space and time become compressed, materialized in the snow.

                                          Not the first to walk a narrow sidewalk close to the city center. 

It brings me back to psychogeography and noticing areas of pull or repulse in urban landscapes. Snow shows these also through their color, changing due to dirt and pollution, sometimes carried even from far away by the wind. Ripple effects in water's solid form. 

Snow can show which buildings still serve a function and which not.

These paths, in less urban central areas can tell cues of something being at the other end or along the way. They can be shortcuts, following more accessible, trekkable geographical forms in the environment or lead to places which for whatever reason (a nature sight for example) have called a bunch of people to a certain location. 

"A preference for places that offer shelter or a view—ideally both—can be considered universal. Places of shelter and outlook strongly support survival. All of Finland’s ancient hillforts are sites from which one can see far while remaining hidden. The capercaillie prefers to forage (that is, eat its winter food, pine needles) in the dense crown of an old pine growing on a rocky hill, from which there is good visibility of the surroundings." - Siksi paikoilla on väliä, Esoteerinen maantiede ja periferiaterapia, Marko Leppänen

                  One of the mesmerizing moments of my life, on top of a mountain range trespassing nation borders in Poland. 

                       With a little imagination, the right angle and spirit, snow banks can remind one of something larger than itself.

Snow itself lands as a blanket upon existing shapes on ground, making the forms curvier, softer and increasing the volume of the branches of a tree for example, thus, standing amidst trees covered by accumulated snow, a sense of shelter is increased, hence my calmness perhaps.

                                                                   

                                                 Two forms of shelter, glass roof covered by snow.

                                                              

                                                                 Tree branches envelope.

                                        The path goes atop a fortified hill which offers glimpses of sunset.

"... the chimpanzees are experiencing an emotional reaction to forces of nature. How similar that is to our own spirituality; who among us is not stirred by the power of a towering, roaring waterfall, or energized and emotionally charged by a close bolt of lightning followed by a clap of thunder? Chimpanzees (and in my opinion, many other species) clearly are." - Exploring Evolution and Spirituality in Chimpanzees and Humans, Jane Goodall's Good for All News, Bill Wallauer

In the debrief afterwards I listen as someone expresses their joy and nostalgia in relation to first snow and the taste and texture of it. I feel sad that one ingests our pollution with it and can't try it without having a second thought. I share the joy and rush of going outside to welcome the first snow, and one of the core experiences for me is how the city sounds different. Accumulated snow muffles the sound.

Part of the urban living experience is to hear the constant noise of cars with studded tires in the long months leading up to winter weather, which finally, for a brief while when the snow is fresh and hasn't been plowed nor eroded away underneath the tires gets dampened. A silencing relief. 

In the debrief afterwards someone remarks that Finnish language has multiple words for the consistency of snow. The geography and weather has its effect on language. On the roof it's dry due to a cold day, Pakkaslumi loosely translates to minus-degree-snow. Loska, plus-degree-melting-snow known for its grey appearance is my nemesis and translates emotionally for me as wet shoe vitutus. The middle ground, when the temperature is tiptoeing around 0° modifies the form into suojalumi, shelter/slushy/heavy wet snow. It is a perfect day to gather your friends and sleds to embark on a laughter filled safe adrenaline adventure at a nearby hillside.

 The suojalumi might offer some friction, reducing speed. If you get bored, be open to the malleability offered by the weather. 

                                               The snow in this form is perfect for the sculptor. 

(I can ask for permission to share the location of our snowcastle, leave a comment if you'd like to contribute on the next suojalumi)

Bypassers stopped to take pictures of some of the sculptures made by those who waited for the late-arrivals to join the party. What a way to make transient art and spread attention from the usual focal points! 

 "I love snow. I feel honored to stand amidst slowly, lightly falling snowflakes and privileged to derive pleasure from it." I proclaim from the bottom of my heart, deeply, but not very seriously wishing that the first snow would stay and keep growing layers from December to March each year. It's like a long durational confetti cushioning inescapably large areas. It's also standing amidst something that you're slowly losing.

That durational confetti is raining less and shorter. Nothing is forever, especially snowmen. 

I have edited a passage away from here, because I don't feel capable nor comfortable to treat its subject at this point. I don't see a point of return either, so I will accumulate enough knowledge, spirits and fortitude to speak of it sometime, but I can't see a way to continue this blog after. I'm afraid all sentences will be dead ends and fouled. Perhaps one can tread backwards the path to hope. 

                                                                               Here, have a Rothko painting instead!

I go back to thinking about the "snowflower" uttered, and how we may need new ways to describe things to see them anew again, the potential of familiars in times of change. Blogging itself can be a semiurgic practice, i.e. "the production of new meanings by the creation of new signs; the expansion of the semiosphere."

Snow appears white in color despite being made of clear ice. This is because the many small crystal facets of the snowflakes scatter the sunlight between them.

That brings me to the work of artists, performers, journalists and writers. Work defined in a way that I'd love to partake in. The Great Work of a Master?

"Written words cause ripples in the fabric of reality."

Take this as a scream for help to preserve snow from a soul. 

Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul, said the British prime minister Margaret Thatcher on the brink of the 1980's as the UK, and large parts of the "West" shifted into next gear of neoliberalism.

"Herodotus' accuracy of information is in inverse proportion to geographical distance from the center: the more remote a country, the more need to rely on hearsay, and the higher the risk of receiving distorted facts" - Herodotus and the Ends of the World, Ippokratis Kantzios

There are souls who operate on different sets of values, co-operate, enjoy each other's company, dream and build snow castles without ever imagining an economic value in return, parting their ways knowing it will melt. There are places that appear momentarily waiting to be witnessed. There are spirits in places. Let us not forget the infinite values around us that occasionally fall as feathers, white confetti on us. 

                                                      Let's not let Margaret get the last word.

"Northward of that country snow falls continually, though less in summer than in winter, as is to be expected. Whoever has seen snow falling thickly near him knows of himself my meaning; for the snow is like feathers; and by reason of the winter, which is such as I have said, the parts to the north of this continent are uninhabited. I think therefore that in this tale of feathers the Scythians and their neighbours do but speak of snow in a figure. Thus then I have spoken of those parts that are said to be most distant." - Herodotus, Histories