Creek Running North

I see, it’s a picture of Jesus in the water! LOL

I couldn’t resist

That’s not Jesus, it’s Chauncey Gardiner; aka Chance the Gardener: “This is just like television, only you can see much further.”

I would consider using the word “tableaux” to describe this.

off topic: i was channel surfing yesterday and was fortunate enough to catch this pbs show on ralph nader fairly early into the program...i was reminded of this post of yours several times while watching the latter half of the program which covered the 2000 election...the sense of entitlement on the part of the democratic party for the progressive vote was simply disgusting to watch...if i were a citizen of this country and debating whether to stay with the democratic party or not, this 2 hour show would have conclusively pushed me to the green party.

This magic moment:  Please accept that i cannot begin to lay down textual tracks that are in anyway comparable with teh Clarke, but i must try to describe the rarest of a fresh winter morning i experienced today.  These sorts of phenomena more oft occur on the upper great plains, but we are blessed occasionally up here in the Palouse with one or two a winter; if we are lucky.  The conditions have to be just right, a synergy of temperature, humidity, outgoing cold front, incoming warm front, sun at the right rising angle of declination, and so far forth. 

Thus, this morning at the point of the first real winter sunrise of the cycle of passing around the sun, i needed to be walking into the city (empty of people and cars, filled only with a surprising hush and the sound of the river cascading over the falls in muted tones). The clear cold front had passed, sometime around midnight, heading off into the east and the Rocky Mountains.  A new warm front was passing over the tops and around the gaps in the Cascades to the west.  As the first hints of the warm front snuck across the Palouse, traces of water vapor from the river (and various pocket lakes) began to rise towards the super-frozen layer, of extremely dry air, hovering about 100’ above the ground.  This formed an instant frozen fog: flat long clouds of ice crystals, suspended by the inversion layer of warm air trapped from below. 

The sun, rising in clear air over the mountains to the east, was not visible.  It was however, reflecting off the huge billowing cumulus clouds to the west; a very bright, clear, white light that refracted and reflected into and throughout the layer of frozen fog.  This rare space/time moment creates a startling and beautiful visual display.  The entire city is lit as though the sky was a large array of lights diffused by a fake ceiling, but more brilliant and more intense than any man-made light effect could be.  There is no way to tell where the light comes from; there are no shadows, only crystal clear views of the city, the streets, the buildings, equally lit on all sides and all surfaces.  Light permeates everything; if you stand next to a building under an awning, you are equally as lit as when you walk out and stand in the empty boulevard. 

It doesn’t last long, and i have only been blessed with a dozen or so of these urban transfigurations in my life.  I feel they arrive as gift beyond measure.  If i had not had to get up so early, and get into town, i would have missed this one entirely.  As it is, now we are experiencing the first wave of a major blizzard, a half inch of snow in the last twenty minutes, with lots more to come soon.