Spring Snow Storm

The photo that accompanies this post was a holiday card we sent a few years ago. I love this picture a lot and it has served as a focal point for meditation for me.

It's a beautiful spring day in Japan and you are entering a park to see the cherry blossoms in bloom and other trees just budding out. As you stroll, you smell fresh new green growth, the faint scent of blossoms in the air. A slight breeze is blowing, lifting your hair and brushing past your skin.

As you continue deeper into the park, the temperature turns colder, the breeze whips past a little faster. Clouds begin to gather in the sky, soon blanketing the sun. You smell a metallic whiff in the air now. Snow, you think!

In the distance you see a small shelter and begin to wind your way through to the paths to it. It's an open-sided wooden building and in the center is an old metal brazier with coals glowing. When you duck under the wooden beams to sit on a smooth, ancient bench, the heat from the brazier begins to warm you. As you glance out, you see a bridge right in front of you. People are hurrying across the bridge, heading home, to work, or out to play. Just as you get comfortable, you see the first snowflake flutter down.

In the distance, people on the paths begin to unfurl their umbrellas. You are safe, warm, and dry in the shelter.