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(Photo by Steve Dieffenbacher) Nature's mists: a solace, and perhaps, a warning An unusually snowy winter here, and recent severe snowstorms in the East and Midwest could be harbingers of an uncertain future By STEVE DIEFFENBACHER Mail Tribune At times it is vaporous, nearly transparent, like a thin film easily drifting over the mountains. At others, it is dark and heavy, resting on them like some unbearable opaque burden. Occasionally, backlit by the sun, it glistens into coils of light, bright filaments rising out of the trees. We have had all of these variations of cloud and mist the last couple of weeks as fronts have come one after another through the Rogue Valley, whitening the mountains and at times, the valley floor. As I've looked at those veiled or shrouded mountains, they almost seem to be breathing — their spirits evoked in the clouds around them. American Indian cultures have long considered the Earth a living being, believing every creature and every inanimate object is part of that energized totality. Crazy Horse, the Lakota warrior and visionary who grew up under the expansive skies of the Great Plains, came to believe that this fluid, vitalized world was only a shadow of an even more luminous one that remains invisible to us. He reportedly spent days and weeks alone trying to better understand not only his present "shadow" existence, but searching for a glimmer of the brighter one beyond it. Advertisement As I looked at the mountains around the Rogue Valley in February, I felt increasingly comforted by those endlessly various swirls of white and gray. There was a dialogue there, clouds and peaks seemingly engaged in subtle whispers of connection, and perhaps, also of warning. In those moments, when I can almost believe the spirit of the planet is revealing itself to us, I see how winter equalizes nature, supressing the cymbals and brass colors of other seasons to show us its unitary, moving force. In the distant past, when people saw the world divided into four prime elements — fire, air, earth and water — water was equated with consciousness. In those tribal days, a winter season laden with moisture not only promised good crops, but was an incentive to explore human awareness more deeply as well. In pre-Columbian mesoamerican societies, Tlaloc, the deity of rain, was sometimes depicted on temples as secondary only to Quetzacoatl, the Plumed Serpent, the god of light and regeneration. And yet I wonder if there isn't something more in these whispers of cloud and peak this winter that have reminded me of all this. The evidence of global warming, already almost inescapable, continues to mount. One of the ironies of the phenomenon is that unexpectedly cold weather can be as much a part of the cycle as unseasonably warm spells. Within the last two weeks the East and Midwest were battered by severe snowstorms. Yet those areas experienced unseasonably balmy temperatures into the early part January. And while they were basking in that unexpected warmth, New Mexico and Colorado out here in the West were being inundated with snow. Global warming increases weather extremes. One of the scenarios for the Northwest as the pattern of warming continues is for more intense rainstorms in late fall and early winter, delaying snow accumulations in the mountains until later in the winter, so there is less moisture feeding streams in the spring during the growing season. In the Rogue Valley this winter, nothing close to this scenario happened. In February, however, the Medford area had the fifth-highest amount of snow in the 95 years that records have been kept, putting it at the edges of what has been the norm. Those wisps of vapor that seemed to drift so hauntingly amid the mountains a week ago already seem to have lost some of their strength. The clouds are slowly withdrawing. I like to imagine that the moisture they left there is gathering itself for spring's resurgence. Below the snow line, wild grasses are beginning to green. Early this week the sky was blue for days, and there was a hint of warmth in the air. Soon, spring's heady scents will renew our faith in life's renewal. And why not? For as long as we can remember, it always has. But we would be foolish to believe the cycle is inalterable as we keep putting toxins into the air that affect worldwide temperatures. What we do affects everything around us. Nature has the power to make itself heard. Here in the Rogue Valley we've had a nudge this year of something in the wind. Fortunately, it seemed only a subtext to the more soothing voice of connection played out on our nearby summits. But if there was ever a time for us to hearken to both voices, that time is now. We've learned a few things in our time here, but the Earth was around long before us and will outlast us unless most of us change how we live. If we choose to ignore the summons, we'll discover all-too-soon how truly insignificant we are. Steve Dieffenbacher is a Mail Tribune page designer/copy editor. You can reach him at 776-4498 or [email protected] Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2007 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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