The daylight is being squeezed out of this place like water from a dish cloth. What we see of the "day light" begins around 6 a.m. and ends before 9 p.m but long shadows need sunlight; and the gaseous star that gives this Earth such time telling slants, has long been dulled behind low level storm clouds or ground blizzards. As the equinox approaches the color of our world grows dim. To try and find one's way over the many directional drifts is a weird sensation in this gray light which is called,"flat". In flat light, the whole of the space you exist in is no more or no less the equivalent of the insides of a white plastic bucket; the proverbial, "bowl of milk". The "ups" are surprisingly more sudden and steep than the "downs". One must lean their whole body forward as when climbing a slope. But, unlike most stable slopes belonging to Terra Fimra, the soft unconsolidated snow sloughs off and you are slipping backwards again into your own boot prints. Once summiting this 4 Ft wave of snow, you walk softly, blindly, though all around you it is bright white. The depression, or trough is approaching.... is approaching .....is ,here! and you are either now already "down" it, on the some- what flat, some- what hard-packed "mean" level of the Summit of the ice cap or, you are falling off the drift, laughing at yourself for being so childishly clumsy.
It is not over. Though the typical, historical, weather pattern brings warm temperatures and high winds from the South, this year it has been blowing from all directions of the compass. This causes many drifts to stretch out across the landscape, similar to a confused sea whose breaking swells, still having a dynamic nature, while moving and growing, become solid. In this region of white, tormented by a now almost month long gale, it is impossible to predict what face you will be struck with which you must ascend and then when will you tumble to the bottom.
We have yet to face extremely cold temperatures this Phase. By "extremely cold" I am making references to the, anything from-minus 40 F and below -type cold. The coldest day to date, -20 F, lasted only a few hours.
People often ask,
"Have you seen any examples of Global warming"?
"Yes".
What more of an example could the thawing of a snow trench-freezer, and thereby its contents, used for storing meats and stuff, in a root cellar -like -space beneath an insulated hatch cover in the floor be? Or these strange weather "patterns" that do not seem to have any pattern in mind at all, unless a pattern can become a continuous cycle? Or the design and chemistry of the snow flakes themselves; no longer so often dry, tiny, needles, but plump, maritime -powder- day -stuff which we are more inclined to see falling upon Mt baker, back home, in Washington state.
This past July, Steve and I visited my Parents in rural Maine. We visited many friends and even had the chance to speak, though briefly, at a local international language school where my very dear friend, Patti works. In front of the Penobscot School's students, I talked about Greenland. Most specifically, the languages spoken there, being Greenlandic and Danish. During the questions I was asked the inevitable, almost breathless: "haveyouseenanysignsofclimatechnage", question.
I told a story about a fact I had read in the New York Times a while back:
In Greenland, first of all, you are not permitted to buy land, but can request it and then claim it for as long as you live. The boundaries of a recently claimed piece of land were simple; from the salt water up to the glacier, being so wide. The Dane, reporting to the 'Times, had said that the climate had warmed up so much he had now much more land (than when he started out). The glacier, of course, has been retreating back into the ice cap.
Though this is excellent for farming, it is, or at least I consider it to be, also an excellent example of climates changing.
I hope you like rubber boots, potatoes and shaggy cows, and though our future can at times seem rather crepuscular, just reflect upon how moving that dimming light can be as it sparkles in the cleavages and crystal like facets of the ice.
