Grace

Last Saturday morning we woke up to the thinnest coating of snow.  It's only 13 degrees outside but I  bundle up and go for a walk.  As I round the corner, the sidewalk is unmarred by footprints; it's a snow-white carpet, scattered with sparks of green and blue, orange and yellow.

It must be the angle of the sun coming up over the rooftops, fracturing the snow crystals into tiny rainbows, strewn not just on the pavement but across frozen lawns as well.

So I blaze a trail on this pristine path, joining other footprints as I round the corner onto Two Rod. I wonder about this pair of footprints; perhaps they belong to Joan and Roseanne, neighbors who are usually finishing their walk as I'm starting out.  Or, could they be Joe and Alica?  No, these are women's sneaker tracks etched in the snow.

As I traverse my usual route, I wonder about the souls of the soles I encounter.  So many patterns, I give them names -- horseshoe heel, windowpane, fish bone, Nike ninja, herringbone, starburst.  So even though I'm walking alone, I feel as though I have company, these snowy sojourners who have come before me. I glance over my shoulder to see  my footprints mingled with theirs and sense an odd unity, a strange melding of time and space, like dimensions colliding.

I make my way as usual to the reservoir.  Here at the dock the snowy crystal coating at my feet remains untouched.  Farther out, the wind has swept the ice clear.  A trio of geese huddle out there, looking taller than usual on their webbed feet.

I don't sit down because if I do, I'll get chilly.  I survey the winter pond. Backyards are exposed, branches are bare, shore stones are edged in ice.  And it's so still.   The silence is vast, hovering over the frozen lake.

I gaze at the handful of prisms scattered on the ice at my feet.  The surface of the pond is three of four feet below the dock I'm standing on.  My focus softens and the sparks of light seem to rise up and fill the air in front of me.  Tiny flecks of green, blue, pink, orange and gold float in the space around me.  This seems  to be an embodiment of grace -- the field of grace that grants access to realms beyond reason.

For me, insight often comes in images.  And this image makes the elusive concept of grace leap to life.  As I turn toward home, I thank the Great Mother in her winter raiment, for rustling her gown and leaving sacred sequins in her wake, seed pearls of wisdom for my healers handbook.