Imbolc Black Mountain Moon (New)
With each snow here there are two separate snowfalls. The first happens when the snow begins, floating down to blanket the earth and the trees. The second snowfall may happen soon after, or be delayed by a day or two. When the weather pattern shifts, the winds come. They dislodge the snow gathered on the sloping branches of the lodgepole pine, a white mist of snow fans out from the branch, following the wind and a large clot of snow falls to the ground.
This second snowfall is more gradual and more idiosyncratic than the first. It depends on how much snow stuck to the lodgepole’s branches, which direction the wind comes from, the sun’s melting the snow and obstructions that divert the wind through the trees. It happens in bursts of white, sometimes many in sequence, as if dominoes had toppled over. Sometimes only one branch dislodges its snow.