My husband woke me at around 7:30 and told me I should get photos of the fleeting beauty of this morning.

My first glimpse out the window. We have yet another winter weather advisory with warnings about snow blowing around and obscuring vision, drifting across roads and making them slippery.

You would think by now after so many storms and so many inches of snow that New Hampshirites might be experiencing cabin fever and throwing copies of Fargo into a bonfire.

But even now in February, dubbed the "Armpit of the Year" by my friend Cheryl, waking to the near-silence of snow falling on maples, pines, cherry trees and covering the dirty brown-gray of roadside snowbanks causes audible gasps of appreciation and a smile to appear.

All heavy and woolen, the snow protects the buds of sleeping flowers.

It traces the graceful dancers' arms of cherry and dogwood.

Looking closely at the clusters of white pine needles, we can almost see walrus faces or the paws of slumbering bears.

Maple dances with pine in an icy freeform waltz. Their scrub children join in the celebration of who and what they are.

Icicles no longer, the heavy burden that once grew from the roof to the back steps has fallen. Now it forms an impenetrable sculpture.
"Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone."

Contrast, always contrast. It reminds us that our world is not built of one set of ideas but of many. Of differences that, when placed side by side, make a picture of humanity that is more complete and complex, richer and so much worth living.

And sometimes, if you look hard enough at the ordinary things in your environment, whether that be trees or rocks or street signs, you might find a hidden jewel that you can take along in your mind's eye.

Today the heart of winter does not beat so cold.

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