"Snow Geese" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
One of the quiet blessings of living in the northwoods is that even the simplest errands can turn into small pilgrimages. A grocery list may be four items long, yet the return journey becomes an unfolding gift when I choose the scenic way home. Yesterday, that choice brought me to a small lake, its waters shimmering sapphire in the crisp light of October.
As I rounded the curve of the road, the lake opened before me—and there they were. A flock of snow geese scattered across its mirrored surface, their white feathers catching the sun like drifting stars. I had to stop. Such moments demand reverence. Camera in hand, I captured an image, but even as I did, I knew the truest memory was the one I carried in my heart: the sudden hush of awe, the reminder that life is filled with arrivals we never planned, and that beauty, unbidden, will always find us.
Snow geese are legendary travelers. They cross thousands of miles between Arctic breeding grounds and southern resting places, guided by the sun, the stars, and the earth’s magnetic field. Their great migrations have been watched for centuries, woven into story and song. For many Indigenous peoples, the snow goose was more than a bird—it was a messenger. White feathers carried the breath of life, a whisper between earth and heaven, a sign of protection and hope. Their flight became a living parable of resilience, freedom, and the soul’s long journey toward renewal.
Yesterday, as I stood by that little roadside lake, I wondered if these geese were messengers to me as well. What words were borne on their wings? What healing might they carry in their white-feathered flight? No answer came, but that was not the point. The point was the stillness. The peace. The opening of my own spirit to the possibility of wonder.
Now it is morning once again. The world is slowly waking, daylight just beginning to spill through the trees, lifting the folds of night. I sit with a steaming mug of coffee, Sissel’s crystalline voice filling the room as she sings Dvořák’s Going Home. The melody is tender, filled with both longing and assurance. I’ve often thought of it as a song about endings, about crossing from one place to another. Yet today it feels different. Today it feels like arrival, like belonging, like home.
Perhaps that is the gift of the snow geese—reminding me that home is not always a place we reach at the end of a long road. Sometimes it is a moment. A morning. A song. A flock of white feathers drifting across a blue lake.
So I begin this day with an affirmation, holding it like a candle:
"Yesterday is not, tomorrow is not. But today, bright with hope and filled with promise, is mine." ~Ernest Holmes
~Wylddane
As I rounded the curve of the road, the lake opened before me—and there they were. A flock of snow geese scattered across its mirrored surface, their white feathers catching the sun like drifting stars. I had to stop. Such moments demand reverence. Camera in hand, I captured an image, but even as I did, I knew the truest memory was the one I carried in my heart: the sudden hush of awe, the reminder that life is filled with arrivals we never planned, and that beauty, unbidden, will always find us.
Snow geese are legendary travelers. They cross thousands of miles between Arctic breeding grounds and southern resting places, guided by the sun, the stars, and the earth’s magnetic field. Their great migrations have been watched for centuries, woven into story and song. For many Indigenous peoples, the snow goose was more than a bird—it was a messenger. White feathers carried the breath of life, a whisper between earth and heaven, a sign of protection and hope. Their flight became a living parable of resilience, freedom, and the soul’s long journey toward renewal.
Yesterday, as I stood by that little roadside lake, I wondered if these geese were messengers to me as well. What words were borne on their wings? What healing might they carry in their white-feathered flight? No answer came, but that was not the point. The point was the stillness. The peace. The opening of my own spirit to the possibility of wonder.
Now it is morning once again. The world is slowly waking, daylight just beginning to spill through the trees, lifting the folds of night. I sit with a steaming mug of coffee, Sissel’s crystalline voice filling the room as she sings Dvořák’s Going Home. The melody is tender, filled with both longing and assurance. I’ve often thought of it as a song about endings, about crossing from one place to another. Yet today it feels different. Today it feels like arrival, like belonging, like home.
Perhaps that is the gift of the snow geese—reminding me that home is not always a place we reach at the end of a long road. Sometimes it is a moment. A morning. A song. A flock of white feathers drifting across a blue lake.
So I begin this day with an affirmation, holding it like a candle:
"Yesterday is not, tomorrow is not. But today, bright with hope and filled with promise, is mine." ~Ernest Holmes
~Wylddane
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