Snowy March

Snow blankets the ground. Perhaps it will cover the gaps and blemishes that characterize these times: Of trust lost. Of fortunes declining. Of values . . . . deteriorating. Or not. Who can tell? Certainly not me. I do have instincts. They seem to be counter to prevailing wisdom.

Clearly, the measures we have used to assess the world are changing. Business-speak and dollars no longer are the proper means of evaluation.

The poem, "What I Believe" by Michael Blumenthal, was featured yesterday on The Writer's Almanac. It contains many strong images and even ideas. But for some reason I was struck by this statement, about halfway through the poem:

I believe in destiny.

And I believe in free will.

How can we hold both of these beliefs at the same time? How can we not? It's really the sole path available to us: the path that is completely unknown. The one where we have a destiny only discovered through the exercise of free will.

Perhaps we all need to stop to listen to the third movement of Olivier Messiaen's work "Des Canyons aux Etoiles" ("From the Canyons to the Stars") and learn what we can about both the drift and intention of nature through "Ce Qui Est Ecrit sur les Etoiles" ("What is Written in the Stars").

I believe that the pure falling snow will, in just a short time, turn to slush. And that out of the slush will, in a new time, come emergent spring buds: frail and finite and full of life.

It is written in the stars.

This I believe.