"The Quiet Parade" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ~John Muir
The February air in the Northwoods wasn’t just cold; it was a living, crystalline presence. It turned every pine needle into a shard of light and packed the silence so tightly it hummed. Ethan zipped his heavy canvas coat to his chin and adjusted his snowshoes, the leather straps creaking softly in protest.
Behind him, Bear...Siberian husky, snow monarch, and self-appointed expedition leader...vibrated with anticipation. His plume of a tail swished once, twice, and his icy blue eyes locked onto the treeline as if it had personally invited him to run.
“All right, Bear,” Ethan laughed, breath blooming white in the air. “Easy. We’re going.”
They were not, however, going alone.
Nestled snugly in a fleece-lined adventure backpack strapped to Ethan’s chest was Isabel. Orange-and-white, compact, and perpetually unimpressed, she peered out through narrowed eyes, her expression suggesting she had opinions about February and none of them were flattering. Still, she had refused to be left behind for the Saturday perimeter walk, and Ethan had learned not to argue with a cat who had already made up her mind.
Their destination was the frozen creek a mile behind the cabin.
Bear took the lead immediately, paws floating over the powder as if gravity had made a special exception for him. Ethan followed in his tracks, enjoying the rhythm of movement and the rare, cathedral-like quiet of the woods.
They hadn’t gone far when Bear stopped so abruptly that snow puffed up around his chest. His ears pricked forward. A low, vibrating whine rolled up from somewhere deep in his chest.
Ahead, just beyond a screen of young spruce, a family of deer moved through the trees. Not bounding. Not fleeing. Simply passing through...long legs lifting and placing with careful grace, steam rising gently from their nostrils. For a moment, no one moved.
Bear leaned forward, muscles coiled.
“No,” Ethan said softly, placing a gloved hand on Bear’s ruff. “Leave it.”
Bear sat. His tail thumped once against the snow, then stilled. The deer flowed onward and were gone, the forest closing behind them as if they’d never been there at all.
Isabel stood up inside the pack, whiskers twitching. She sniffed the air, ears rotating independently. Then...emboldened...she reached out and tapped Ethan’s chin with one soft paw, her universal signal for put me down.
Ethan laughed and lowered the pack. Isabel hopped out, sank instantly chest-deep into the powder, let out a startled and indignant “Mrow!” and launched herself back into the pack with astonishing speed.
Ethan lifted the pack again.
“Decision made,” he said.
Farther on, they came upon movement near a fallen log: a family of rabbits, ears upright, bodies half-hidden beneath the snow. They froze, a collective breath held, until Bear deliberately turned his head away...a gesture Ethan knew meant I see you, and I’m choosing not to care.
A little farther still, the quiet filled with color. A bright scatter of cardinals burst from a cedar, flashes of red against the white like living embers. Beneath them, a flurry of juncos lifted and settled again, gray and white snow-spirits flickering at ground level.
Isabel chirruped softly, her tail flicking inside the pack. Bear watched it all with calm dignity, as if he were escorting them through a private showing of February’s finest work.
At the frozen creek, Bear couldn’t contain himself any longer. He sprinted ahead, slid on his belly, rolled once, then came to a triumphant stop in the middle of the ice. Ethan followed more carefully, standing for a moment to take it in...the pale birches, the pink-washed sky, the hush that comes only when winter is fully itself.
As the light softened and the cold deepened, they turned back toward the cabin.
Fire. Coffee. A full tuna can. A husky curled in satisfied exhaustion.
It was a simple February day in the Northwoods—but it felt like they’d been part of something larger: a quiet parade moving through the woods, each creature choosing, for a while, to move together in peace.
* * * * * * * * * *
I linger in the story of Ethan, Bear, and Isabel even as the solitary notes of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite greet the morning and gently pull me back to now. Outside the window, night is still reluctant to let go, and my own reflection looks back at me from the dark glass.
A small desk lamp pools its light across the workspace. My coffee mug steams, rich and fragrant, promising warmth before I even take the first sip.
I think of something I read yesterday from Dr. Wayne Dyer:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
February teaches this quietly. It does not ask permission to be cold. It does not soften itself to suit our preferences. And yet, within it, there are cardinals, and juncos, and deer moving without fear; there is companionship, restraint, patience, and warmth waiting at the end of the trail.
We cannot always choose the season we are in. We can choose how we walk through it. We can choose whether to rush, to resist, or to notice. Whether to chase, or...as Bear did...to sit, breathe, and let beauty pass unharmed.
Attitude is not denial. It is alignment. It is deciding where to place the weight of the heart.
And so this day begins.
~Wylddane
The February air in the Northwoods wasn’t just cold; it was a living, crystalline presence. It turned every pine needle into a shard of light and packed the silence so tightly it hummed. Ethan zipped his heavy canvas coat to his chin and adjusted his snowshoes, the leather straps creaking softly in protest.
Behind him, Bear...Siberian husky, snow monarch, and self-appointed expedition leader...vibrated with anticipation. His plume of a tail swished once, twice, and his icy blue eyes locked onto the treeline as if it had personally invited him to run.
“All right, Bear,” Ethan laughed, breath blooming white in the air. “Easy. We’re going.”
They were not, however, going alone.
Nestled snugly in a fleece-lined adventure backpack strapped to Ethan’s chest was Isabel. Orange-and-white, compact, and perpetually unimpressed, she peered out through narrowed eyes, her expression suggesting she had opinions about February and none of them were flattering. Still, she had refused to be left behind for the Saturday perimeter walk, and Ethan had learned not to argue with a cat who had already made up her mind.
Their destination was the frozen creek a mile behind the cabin.
Bear took the lead immediately, paws floating over the powder as if gravity had made a special exception for him. Ethan followed in his tracks, enjoying the rhythm of movement and the rare, cathedral-like quiet of the woods.
They hadn’t gone far when Bear stopped so abruptly that snow puffed up around his chest. His ears pricked forward. A low, vibrating whine rolled up from somewhere deep in his chest.
Ahead, just beyond a screen of young spruce, a family of deer moved through the trees. Not bounding. Not fleeing. Simply passing through...long legs lifting and placing with careful grace, steam rising gently from their nostrils. For a moment, no one moved.
Bear leaned forward, muscles coiled.
“No,” Ethan said softly, placing a gloved hand on Bear’s ruff. “Leave it.”
Bear sat. His tail thumped once against the snow, then stilled. The deer flowed onward and were gone, the forest closing behind them as if they’d never been there at all.
Isabel stood up inside the pack, whiskers twitching. She sniffed the air, ears rotating independently. Then...emboldened...she reached out and tapped Ethan’s chin with one soft paw, her universal signal for put me down.
Ethan laughed and lowered the pack. Isabel hopped out, sank instantly chest-deep into the powder, let out a startled and indignant “Mrow!” and launched herself back into the pack with astonishing speed.
Ethan lifted the pack again.
“Decision made,” he said.
Farther on, they came upon movement near a fallen log: a family of rabbits, ears upright, bodies half-hidden beneath the snow. They froze, a collective breath held, until Bear deliberately turned his head away...a gesture Ethan knew meant I see you, and I’m choosing not to care.
A little farther still, the quiet filled with color. A bright scatter of cardinals burst from a cedar, flashes of red against the white like living embers. Beneath them, a flurry of juncos lifted and settled again, gray and white snow-spirits flickering at ground level.
Isabel chirruped softly, her tail flicking inside the pack. Bear watched it all with calm dignity, as if he were escorting them through a private showing of February’s finest work.
At the frozen creek, Bear couldn’t contain himself any longer. He sprinted ahead, slid on his belly, rolled once, then came to a triumphant stop in the middle of the ice. Ethan followed more carefully, standing for a moment to take it in...the pale birches, the pink-washed sky, the hush that comes only when winter is fully itself.
As the light softened and the cold deepened, they turned back toward the cabin.
Fire. Coffee. A full tuna can. A husky curled in satisfied exhaustion.
It was a simple February day in the Northwoods—but it felt like they’d been part of something larger: a quiet parade moving through the woods, each creature choosing, for a while, to move together in peace.
* * * * * * * * * *
I linger in the story of Ethan, Bear, and Isabel even as the solitary notes of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite greet the morning and gently pull me back to now. Outside the window, night is still reluctant to let go, and my own reflection looks back at me from the dark glass.
A small desk lamp pools its light across the workspace. My coffee mug steams, rich and fragrant, promising warmth before I even take the first sip.
I think of something I read yesterday from Dr. Wayne Dyer:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
February teaches this quietly. It does not ask permission to be cold. It does not soften itself to suit our preferences. And yet, within it, there are cardinals, and juncos, and deer moving without fear; there is companionship, restraint, patience, and warmth waiting at the end of the trail.
We cannot always choose the season we are in. We can choose how we walk through it. We can choose whether to rush, to resist, or to notice. Whether to chase, or...as Bear did...to sit, breathe, and let beauty pass unharmed.
Attitude is not denial. It is alignment. It is deciding where to place the weight of the heart.
And so this day begins.
~Wylddane
RSS Feed