A Winter’s Seer by Leah Black

“My thoughts engulf the shivery atmosphere, drifting like snowflakes and freezing in the stillness. Maybe my mind’s mumblings will melt away into the iron-rich soil below, turning the white sheet of today into blood rust of tomorrow. ”

There, in the wintery distance, is a supernatural land for elementals and elves, and I declare to the frosty air that I will be part of this day’s melting story. As I gaze, solstice sunlight hits my eyes, creating sepia drawings in my mind sketched by snow’s ivory reflections. In an icy mirage, the skyline holds visions of serenity and solitude, illuminated by the foreboding silence of waltzing wind and wispy winter clouds.

My thoughts engulf the shivery atmosphere, drifting like snowflakes and freezing in the stillness. Maybe my mind’s mumblings will melt away into the iron-rich soil below, turning the white sheet of today into blood rust of tomorrow. 

Adjacent to my stride walk the prints of Iberian wolves, a shadow of their chilly hunt. In a powerful white haze, I step through a winter’s chronicle, cheeks molten red against a bitter breeze. My eyes feel bluer, greyer, and wild under this blank fabric of bright light, like a wolf’s. In a moment of sensory imagination, I join their pack. Rocks below capture my sight, and within them, a cave calls. I make a slippery descent into blackness and inhale intense aromas of dampness. Luring ripples settle in an inky pool of melted snow and eerie echoes of droplets disappear into murky tunnels. Bewitched by still dark water and deafening silence, I peer into the pool’s slippery surface. It shines like polished jet, an azabache mirror between this world and the next, a scene for a Seer. 

Back to lucid whiteness, a chandelier of icicles sway on the cave’s frozen, weeping, entrance. Each one clung to a withered fern, malachite leaf or strand of lichen. Their last moment captured inside crystal globes and transparent wands. Quintessential air fills my chest, and steamy breath surrounds the darkened cave portal like a dragon dramatically exiting her lair. I stand poised in the frozen embrace of winter’s wondrous womb, surrounded by a miracle of watery forms. All forest beings bound by water. Under scales of glassy ice, a stream’s flowing artery connects the veins of frigid fingers and snow white branches to our single source, life’s cord and creator, Water. 

I make speedy stride back to the Spanish mountain village, as a setting sun sends pink snowy sparkles and glaciating rays rolling through country fields. I smell the log fire chimneys, chorizos curing and bean stews preparing. An elderly neighbour, 104-years here, smiles through a frosting window at memories of childhood, snow-filled, laughter.

I step from the membrane of this icy wonderland through the olden stone door, arched with magnificent masonry, sturdy with weathered chestnut wood, protected by mistletoe hanging at its meridian. The kitchen’s crackling fire and orange berry embers welcome me home again. A slow pot cooking, of garlic soup, has turned the air into the hugging incense of home. The golden blaze thaws out cold fingers, glowing as red as Palaeolithic hands painted in a cave. I see flames dance harmoniously to my flittering digits, and in a temporary trance I sense fire and human’s forgotten synergy; our sacred symbiotic bond between human heart and elemental hearth. 

Leah Black 
Leah is a wanderer and journey-teller by soul, who is captivated by spiritual ecology, wilderness and cultures of past and present; elements which are faithfully unified into her devotion for writing. She explores ancient sites and isolated places weekly, whilst purposefully getting lost, alone, in mountains and dusky forests, where she can be found sitting by a stream or under a dark sky, writing with Nature by candle, sun or firelight. Leah has collected a degree in wildlife conservation, a PgDip, ACTP and an environmentally-based therapy certification, amongst other dusty gatherings of papers and accreditations. She has delivered a rewarding medley of environmental, personal-growth and informal-education programs throughout her 20-year community and Nature connection career. She originates from a flat, unassuming Northern edge of England, but now lives upon a soul-stirring mountain peak in Northern Spain; weaving her Celtic roots across waters. In this enchanting spot, of breath-taking beauty, she is inspired by her kind-hearted neighbours, like bears, trees, swallows and stone, lichen, ferns and wolves; where her natural allies emanate energy into words that Leah, in receiving these wonderings, shares through her writings. 

Photos also by Leah Black