SNOW WONDERINGS

There's some more snow on the way and the weatherman says it'll be another 4 inches. I don't mind a bit. I'm a skier and every inch means real heaven made snow covering the trails. I'm not a big fan of man made snow. The consistency is strange and it has a greasy feel that slides into piles. It's great technology and Sunday River does a great job of keeping the trails covered and Lord knows, the area needs dependable snow to keep the skiers and riders coming. But somehow, it just doesn't feel right. Guess there is nothing better than the real thing. My deep instinct seems to be a mistrust of man made when the making is in competiton with the master...Mother Nature. Skiing on manmade snow is like...well, its like swimming in Lake Mead, that huge man made lake in Nevada. A real lake doesn't have treetops poking up from underneath the water and an aura of death about it. A real lake is an oasis for life and a multitude of living creatures. The experience of swimming in Lake Mead gave me the creeps. I felt an edginess, a lack of trust and to this day I wish I hadn't gone swimming there. It has always felt like a sin against nature.

The local newspaper had a story this week about a Barred Owl that has been flying into a barn in Bethel and taking the heads off chickens as the favored meal. A Barred Owl apparently isn't one for flying into a building under regular conditions. But the snow is deep and the cold has been cruel. When Sadie and I walk in the woods, there aren't many animal tracks at all. The wildlife must be hunkered down and living off stored fat. (Wish I could say the same for myself) So the consensus was that the owl was stressed out and starving. The poor thing had beheaded six chickens before a wildlife expert caught it in a mesh net and sent it to "detox". I was amused by the perception that the owl eating chicken heads was unnatural and the implication the owl needed detox...but apparently there are minerals and food morsels in the chicken brains that the owl was needing. Stessed by snow...yes. But a drunken chicken killer? I wonder how we humans determine that the way we think about things is the way things are.

Over and over I watch the weathermen predict the course of the weather based on their dopler radar and all their technological instruments...and over and over, they are wrong. It kind of makes a person wonder...is it really intelligent to think humans are the intelligent animal on the planet? Or might it not be smarter to begin to give some credit to the intelligence that the natural world is embedded in...the winds, the woods and trees and mountains? Perhaps if we humans began listening less to TV and computer technologies and "experts", we might learn something from the interrelationships of the creatures themselves. Perhaps we are all embedded in a primordial soup of intelligence. I know that the best weather forecast is found by going outside and taking a look for yourself. Why not believe that the owl knew exactly what it needed? I know the chickens might not like the idea of being on the menu at the fast food barn but why is it that the human agenda always takes precedence at great expense to earth and all the diverse lifeforms that share the planet with us? No wonder we have so much difficulty sorting out the real from the not as real. Maybe we would grow smarter if we took off our human lens and tried on the eyes of owls. Whooo whoooo, who cooks for you all? Might we see a vast web of interconnection...a beautiful mystery.