December 1, 2025, Monday morning … last night’s snow powder left by the season’s first snowfall … mystery creating mist …
First snow! I see it young every winter,
Yet my face grows old
As Winter comes.
~The Diary of Izumi Shikibu (1002-1003 AD)*
Through Brazilian Eyes has invited lens-artists to illustrate silence through images…
Living in the country, waking to snow left during the night, feeling the silence – the stilled silence, and then gasping and sharing with delight the sight of footprints left by silent night visitors. Memories.
I once read that the silence after a snowstorm isn’t just our imagination — all those tiny flakes actually trap the sounds of your surroundings.
“Chris Bianchi, a meteorologist at Weather Nation, described the phenomenon as a sort of citywide cup of tea: After a big storm, we can take a few minutes to relax and take in the quiet.
“The science behind that quiet comes down to how sound waves travel (or, more accurately, don’t travel) through snowflakes.
“‘Snowflakes, when they’re spaced further apart, there’s little gaps, obviously invisible to the naked human eye,’ Bianchi said. ‘But there are these little gaps within the snow and those are very efficient at absorbing sound.’
“The sound waves from cars, buildings and people get trapped in those small places between the snowflakes.
“Not just any snow can trap noise. It has to be the freshly fallen, light and fluffy. Wet and heavy snow doesn’t leave those spaces for sound to be trapped.
“One study found a couple of inches of snow can absorb as much as 60 percent of sound. Snow can act as a commercial sound-absorbing foam when it’s in that fluffy, freshly fallen state.
“As the snow starts to melt, those little sound-catching spaces start to go away too.
“(When snow melts) it compacts, and that compaction reduces the amount of little crevices and nooks and crannies that sound is able to be trapped in,” Bianchi said.
“So, for at least a few hours or even a day after a snowstorm, we can get some reprieve from all that noise around us.
“‘It’s calming, it’s relaxing, it’s tranquil,’ Bianchi said. ‘Life is kind of forced in a sense to slow down.’”
cited: CPR News, Claire Cleveland and Andrea Dukakis, “Yes, it really is quieter when it snows. Here’s the science behind the calm after the storm. February 4, 2020.
And then, the crunching sounds of footsteps ending silence.
Memories are priceless…some are like hot chocolate and cozy socks on a chilly night. Others, not so much … prickly needles.
This week as I watched videos of the winter storm in the Sierra Nevada memories of a particular winter in Iowa when the wind chill was reported to be 60 below zero visited for a moment or two. They were then replaced with memories of family photos of the winter in Portola, California when the snow fall was recorded at 9 feet.
Even though January is my birth month, I often experience the winter blues in January as it is usually the longest, coldest, darkest month of the year. Not so this year in Northeastern Colorado. “Snow,” I ask, “where are those new snow-making memories?”
green leaves of spring,
harvest moon in autumn,
cool breezes in summer,
snow in winter …
A mind not clouded by ignorance,
the seasons of home.
Everything changes and nothing lasts forever
images submitted in response to slow shutter speed’s lens-artists challenge: weather. Weather is a specific event—like a rainstorm or hot day—that happens over a few hours, days or weeks. Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over 30 years or more.
First snow! I see it young every winter,
Yet my face grows old
As Winter comes. ~ The Diary of Izumi Shikibu*
*cited: Trans: Annie Shepley Omori & Kochi Doi Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
sunday morning with Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
“… She was staring into the lake, watching the snow as it reached the black water and then vanished. As if the snow never existed. How nature teaches the same thing again and again, she thought. Yet it was so beautiful, the silence, the drift of the snow down from the heavens, the disappearance of each flake as it touched the surface of the lake. Surely they live on, she thought.” ~The Snow Fox, pg. 94
in earth and sky
no grain of dust
snow on the foothills
~Chirin
March winds bring April showers and May flowers
In northeastern Colorado, March and April often bring heavy snow storms. While many across the globe may be tired of snow, I delight watching big snowflakes cover the world outside my window waiting with anticipation for the stilled silence that will embrace the neighborhood.
Waking up to a snow covered streets is a sure sign that soon there will be a call; it’s a snow day! A guiltless day away from the office, yes!
And then after a sleep in, there is a walk through the park and being silently greeted by snow people.
Do you remember playing King of the Mountain on the big piles of snow left by snow plows?
The next best part of these storms is the warning that occurs in a day or two … the sounds of melting snow’s rivulets and the touch of spring’s silken breezes.
spring begins–
sparrows at my gate
with healthy faces ~Issa (haikuguy.com)
Sofia Photographias: spring
this aged soul wonders,
as you wander through my dreams,
would I be in yours?
Fujifilm X-T4: f/16 . 1/1000 s . 80 mm . -1.7 ev . 640 ISO
Patti invited lens-artists to explore diagonal lines in their creative work. The lines within an image guide the eye through the frame, carefully taking the viewer through the photograph. They also help to create depth, a sense of tension, and dynamism.
“It’s because I’m depressed.”
‘About what?”
“The rain. It’ll stop soon.”
“When you’re depressed, it rains?”
“Yes.”
“Then when there’s a typhoon, how depressed are you?”
“That’s not me, … the earth’s depressed.” ~Guardian: The Lonely and Great God
Sony RX-1003 … f/4 1/640s 70mm 80 ISO
a meditative journey 
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