"The Island in the Thaw" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“The presence we seek is not hidden.
It is the water beneath the ice,
the breath within the breath,
the ground that has always held us.”
It was an unusually mild February in Lone Pine. The kind of winter that felt as though it had loosened its collar. The air still held a clean, crystalline edge, but it no longer bit. Snow softened instead of squeaked. The pines released slow sighs as if grateful for the reprieve.
Liam stood on the porch of his cedar-shingled cottage overlooking Stillwater Gleam, a mug warming his palms while Mabel leaned into his leg. The lake was still locked in ice, but not with its usual iron certainty. Patches near the shoreline had begun to darken. The world felt in-between.
“Island day?” he asked.
Mabel’s ears lifted. That was answer enough.
They strapped on light snowshoes and stepped onto the lake. The ice felt thick, steady, but alive beneath them — faintly ticking, faintly settling, as winter shifted its weight. Ahead lay “The Island,” a modest hump of spruce and white pine that rose from the center of the Gleam like a quiet thought.
Halfway across, Mabel slowed.
Not alarmed. Not urgent.
Just attentive.
She angled slightly east of their usual path, nose low, tail level — the thoughtful stance of a dog solving a puzzle. Liam followed without question. Years together had taught him that Mabel did not move without reason.
Near a cluster of wind-carved snowdrifts, the surface of the lake changed color — not the dangerous grey of thin ice, but a clear, luminous blue. Sunlight had struck it at just the right angle, melting away a veil of snow. Beneath the ice, something dark lay embedded.
Liam knelt.
He brushed the surface with his glove and felt the faintest indentation beneath. A shape. Too symmetrical to be random.
He unpacked his small hand auger and chipped carefully at the upper crust — not breaking through, just clearing the clouded layer. Slowly, as if a curtain were lifting, the ice clarified.
There it was.
A wooden shape.
A curved prow.
A canoe.
Frozen in the lake.
Not recent — this one bore the softened lines of time, its ribs faint but visible, its bow angled as if still pushing forward. Beneath it lay the darker shadow of lake bottom, the canoe suspended like a memory caught mid-sentence.
Liam exhaled.
“How long have you been there?” he murmured.
He imagined late autumn decades ago — perhaps a misjudged crossing before freeze-up. Or perhaps older still. A relic from the days when this lake was a passageway rather than a view. Ojibwe hunters gliding silently across water. Fur traders. A boy learning to paddle under his father’s steady hand.
The lake had kept its story.
Mabel lay down beside him, chin resting on her paws, as if honoring the moment.
There was no need to retrieve it. No need to claim it. Some things are meant to remain where they rest — woven into the fabric of place.
They continued to The Island, but more slowly now.
Among the spruce, the air held the scent of thawing needles and sun-warmed bark. They circled the perimeter, watching the mild light flicker between branches. From this vantage point, Lone Pine looked smaller, gentler. The cottage smoke rose in a thin silver ribbon.
On their return, Liam paused once more over the buried canoe.
“Still traveling,” he said quietly. “Just differently.”
The ice clicked softly beneath them — not cracking, not breaking — simply adjusting.
By the time they reached shore, the sun had lowered toward afternoon gold. The lake shimmered. And for the first time all winter, Liam felt not the endurance of cold — but the promise of becoming.
Mabel bumped his hand.
Best team in the Northwoods.
* * * * * * * * * *
It is growing light outside as I write this.
The merging sun paints the eastern clouds a gentle rose — that soft Northwoods pink that feels less like color and more like permission. The mug beside me steams in the quiet of this wee cottage, the coffee rich and grounding.
Hauser’s cello drifts through the room — his rendition of “Tennessee” from Pearl Harbor. The notes linger, spacious and tender. They do not hurry. They simply are.
And then there is the paraphrased quote from Jim Palmer that has been turning gently in my thoughts:
“And then, I went hunting for God--
What I discovered instead was the thing no one tells you:
the presence I was searching for was woven into reality itself—woven into me, into this breath, into the ground of existence that doesn't ask for permission to be what it already is.”
This morning, that frozen canoe feels like a metaphor.
We go searching — for answers, for reassurance, for meaning, for something greater than ourselves. We imagine it somewhere distant: on an island, across a lake, hidden under ice.
But what if the sacred thing is already beneath our feet?
What if it has been holding us all along?
The lake does not strain to be holy.
The sunrise does not petition to be beautiful.
This breath does not request approval before entering our lungs.
It simply is.
And we are woven into it.
The mild February thaw reminds me that even when life feels frozen — paused, uncertain, suspended — there are stories beneath the surface. There is quiet continuity. There is a presence that does not leave when the ice forms.
We do not have to rescue it.
We only have to notice.
Another sip of coffee.
The cello rises and falls like breath.
Light gathers.
And so this day begins — not with a search, but with a remembering.
~Wylddane
It is the water beneath the ice,
the breath within the breath,
the ground that has always held us.”
It was an unusually mild February in Lone Pine. The kind of winter that felt as though it had loosened its collar. The air still held a clean, crystalline edge, but it no longer bit. Snow softened instead of squeaked. The pines released slow sighs as if grateful for the reprieve.
Liam stood on the porch of his cedar-shingled cottage overlooking Stillwater Gleam, a mug warming his palms while Mabel leaned into his leg. The lake was still locked in ice, but not with its usual iron certainty. Patches near the shoreline had begun to darken. The world felt in-between.
“Island day?” he asked.
Mabel’s ears lifted. That was answer enough.
They strapped on light snowshoes and stepped onto the lake. The ice felt thick, steady, but alive beneath them — faintly ticking, faintly settling, as winter shifted its weight. Ahead lay “The Island,” a modest hump of spruce and white pine that rose from the center of the Gleam like a quiet thought.
Halfway across, Mabel slowed.
Not alarmed. Not urgent.
Just attentive.
She angled slightly east of their usual path, nose low, tail level — the thoughtful stance of a dog solving a puzzle. Liam followed without question. Years together had taught him that Mabel did not move without reason.
Near a cluster of wind-carved snowdrifts, the surface of the lake changed color — not the dangerous grey of thin ice, but a clear, luminous blue. Sunlight had struck it at just the right angle, melting away a veil of snow. Beneath the ice, something dark lay embedded.
Liam knelt.
He brushed the surface with his glove and felt the faintest indentation beneath. A shape. Too symmetrical to be random.
He unpacked his small hand auger and chipped carefully at the upper crust — not breaking through, just clearing the clouded layer. Slowly, as if a curtain were lifting, the ice clarified.
There it was.
A wooden shape.
A curved prow.
A canoe.
Frozen in the lake.
Not recent — this one bore the softened lines of time, its ribs faint but visible, its bow angled as if still pushing forward. Beneath it lay the darker shadow of lake bottom, the canoe suspended like a memory caught mid-sentence.
Liam exhaled.
“How long have you been there?” he murmured.
He imagined late autumn decades ago — perhaps a misjudged crossing before freeze-up. Or perhaps older still. A relic from the days when this lake was a passageway rather than a view. Ojibwe hunters gliding silently across water. Fur traders. A boy learning to paddle under his father’s steady hand.
The lake had kept its story.
Mabel lay down beside him, chin resting on her paws, as if honoring the moment.
There was no need to retrieve it. No need to claim it. Some things are meant to remain where they rest — woven into the fabric of place.
They continued to The Island, but more slowly now.
Among the spruce, the air held the scent of thawing needles and sun-warmed bark. They circled the perimeter, watching the mild light flicker between branches. From this vantage point, Lone Pine looked smaller, gentler. The cottage smoke rose in a thin silver ribbon.
On their return, Liam paused once more over the buried canoe.
“Still traveling,” he said quietly. “Just differently.”
The ice clicked softly beneath them — not cracking, not breaking — simply adjusting.
By the time they reached shore, the sun had lowered toward afternoon gold. The lake shimmered. And for the first time all winter, Liam felt not the endurance of cold — but the promise of becoming.
Mabel bumped his hand.
Best team in the Northwoods.
* * * * * * * * * *
It is growing light outside as I write this.
The merging sun paints the eastern clouds a gentle rose — that soft Northwoods pink that feels less like color and more like permission. The mug beside me steams in the quiet of this wee cottage, the coffee rich and grounding.
Hauser’s cello drifts through the room — his rendition of “Tennessee” from Pearl Harbor. The notes linger, spacious and tender. They do not hurry. They simply are.
And then there is the paraphrased quote from Jim Palmer that has been turning gently in my thoughts:
“And then, I went hunting for God--
What I discovered instead was the thing no one tells you:
the presence I was searching for was woven into reality itself—woven into me, into this breath, into the ground of existence that doesn't ask for permission to be what it already is.”
This morning, that frozen canoe feels like a metaphor.
We go searching — for answers, for reassurance, for meaning, for something greater than ourselves. We imagine it somewhere distant: on an island, across a lake, hidden under ice.
But what if the sacred thing is already beneath our feet?
What if it has been holding us all along?
The lake does not strain to be holy.
The sunrise does not petition to be beautiful.
This breath does not request approval before entering our lungs.
It simply is.
And we are woven into it.
The mild February thaw reminds me that even when life feels frozen — paused, uncertain, suspended — there are stories beneath the surface. There is quiet continuity. There is a presence that does not leave when the ice forms.
We do not have to rescue it.
We only have to notice.
Another sip of coffee.
The cello rises and falls like breath.
Light gathers.
And so this day begins — not with a search, but with a remembering.
~Wylddane
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