The most beautiful thing I saw last month stopped me cold in a natural nave that parted the pews in a cathedral of trees. I tried to squint upward into a cascade of light. Couldn’t. The sky throbbed and flickered like lightning through interlaced branches, and snowflakes shimmered on my lashes. Blazing white snow was wafting out of even more brilliant whiteness – the dust of lightning – and I felt baptized. The frozen air was so pure, it was like breathing God.

Stormskiing, as I like to call it, isn’t all that unusual for me; but witnessing flotillas of snow swirl out of a canescent sky with flashes of light is rare. If you ever get a chance to stand in a dazzling snowstorm infused with sunshine, seize upon it. It may be a foretaste of eternity – the celebrated white tunnel or something as purely angelic as awakening in a snowglobe. I laughed like a child.

Hallmark Christmas card scenes and Norman Rockwell paintings are everywhere this time of year in Minnesota. Get out of your house, get out of your car, and you are never far from Mom Nature’s parlor. These gradations of light are why the Inuits have 150 words to describe snow. And if you ever stand near the nimbus of a trail lamp while small comets of snow pelt through the glow or wander errantly as if the light were warmth, you will understand my theory that fireflies in winter merely become free-range snowflakes.

It’s a great cure for SAD, if your moods are subject to seasonal effects. Kind of ironic, really, that winter is thought of as a time of reduced illumination, because just the opposite is true if you escape the second-hand light of houses and cars. Light seems to spring from everywhere in nature once the man-made barriers are removed. You see it. You feel it. You breathe it. I think the owl must have been invented here. Splendid creatures, they are, who thrive in the night because there is too much light for them in the day. Terrible squinters, owls.

Speaking of owls, the movie scene where a long ton of mail flutters into Harry Potter’s bedroom delivered by a snow owl played out for me last month. Responses to the Valentine’s Sullygram deluged me with email. If Masters & Johnson were fortunate enough to receive your correspondence, they would need to issue a new Kinsey report on sexual behavior. Thank you exponentially for sharing! A number of people wrote they wished I had included more from a woman’s POV about men’s needs, so I’ve adapted the following from something I posted on FB.

I’ve seen so many women agonize unnecessarily over their beauty. Of course, looks matter in attraction – we don’t fall in love with bird cages and fire hydrants (well, I’ve seen some pretty torrid fire hydrants). But despite the stereotype of all males being shallow, it isn’t a woman’s physical attributes that bond and hold a good man. It’s what she does with what nature gave her that matters, her exclusive choice to whom she gives everything she works so hard to make alluring. However she may age, exercising that prerogative of exclusiveness tells a man whether she is his soulmate. That’s a man’s insecurity. Few women truly appreciate that. That’s a woman’s insecurity. I remember well the epiphany moment when a well-endowed but modest woman said something to me along those lines that had the power to bond me. She was 32 and a mother twice over before we fell in love. It was a romantic night between us, and she said she wished we could have been intimate before she had children, that she wished she had given her full prime to me. Though I’m sure she didn’t realize it, that heartfelt wish on her part indemnified her against the ravages of time. Attraction so consecrated is what makes a woman lastingly beautiful to a man. She doesn’t need to become bitter or judgmental because age has changed the way she is valued. It is wrenching to see a woman trying to blame her past choices on something or someone in order not to hate herself, and it is totally unnecessary. Then and now, her needs and choices were valid and need no excuses. Being the one she gave all her exclusive best to is what makes her worthy to a worthy man -- her choice.

Photos below span time and place as follows: #1 strawberry fields forever (my kids, Colleen & Sean, w/me at a farm long ago in Michigan; #2-4 some mood shots at Elm Creek; #5 Colleen & Sean; #6 chrome yellow afternoon; #7 early morning ski last week; #8-11 some more winter moods for skinny skiing; #12 one of the last ski days this year…

Last but not least, I hope you are all well in body and in STATE OF MIND. We are beset by rumors and divisions that do nothing to minimize damage and maximize positive outcomes from the flu variant that came out of China recently. Some thoughts:

Doesn’t matter if it’s from the bellwether sheep, the cow at the head of a cattle drive, or doomsday pessimism from the dominant media, alarms cause fear in social animals. There is good purpose behind this, as it sometimes means survival (though for humans it was more relevant in the jungles and lawless ages before societies became sophisticated and calculating). Trouble is that alarms can also be their own worst enemy, magnifying fear until it causes counter-productive panic, demoralizing hysteria and irrational anger. Step into a supermarket today, and you will see shortages and price hikes driven by panic.

Like any social animal, we take our cues from the herd. And when it comes to cues, our vast capacities for language and emotional manipulation are unmatched. We lead with our feelings. Apply all the smarts you want, when the herd panics, blind instincts kick in. It’s as old as gossip around the village well.

Media and entertainment have been the bellwether in our society now for at least 60 years. Print or electronic, media is our village well on steroids. Appeal to emotions strongly enough and you become the de facto societal power. Emotional pitches sell soap, raise heroes or destroy them, castigate villains, self-promote, educate and inform, miseducate and misinform, foment social discontent, instigate rebellion, morph neutral and anonymous reporting into celebrity journalism, and cause people to wear, eat or do almost any silly thing in the name of “coolness” and social acceptance. Command the airways, and you have instant armies you can shape for better or for worse. It’s a power that can save or cannibalize a society.
 

We are not robots. Yet. But if we surrender our rational brains to pure emotions and the panic that makes any crisis worse, we may soon be governed by AI. I was struck recently by a wonderful page Rosanne Cash wrote about her mother in her memoir “Composed.” She described a hypersensitive woman overwhelmed by her own emotions, someone who made business decisions based on whether she liked someone, and how she confided in untrustworthy persons because they seemed nice while conversely failing to recognize help if it seemed emotionally detached from her. Rosanne’s mother has passed away, but that’s a made-to-order profile for consuming the flavor-of-the-day Kool-Aid. Put your emotional reflexes in charge, and you’ve surrendered to whatever polished deceptions control your attention. So, in your own interest and those you love, let your rational mind temper the panic that some are fanning. Expect that a health crisis and related economics are going to be seized upon at least through election day. Choose whichever partisan side you wish, but do not let ulterior political motives stampede you into panic through the media either directly or with innuendos. Hysteria won’t cure anything.

A lion coming in or a lamb going out, March is a magical month for me. Auspicious dates abound. Wishing you all that inspires you every day and every night!

Thomas "Sully" Sullivan