We have no snow. I have no snow. No snow. I am unhappy about this. Can you tell?!

Texas has snow. Florida has snow. Ontario has snow.

I have slightly frozen dirt with the odd mini snow remnants in hidden corners of buildings and trees.

Doesn’t quite have the same appeal.

Where’s the snow???????!!!!!!!

First Snow Starry Night

The lack of snow is, of course, all part of our continuous march towards getting everyone to comprehend just how blatantly we are the cause and effect of global warming.

When National Geographic published their video and essay regarding the polar bears starving in the North, it was beyond shocking to those of us who know and believe in the mass impacts of our industrial past and present.

Here’s visual, searing proof of global warming accompanied by the stories and words of those who were there.

Then I overheard people in a coffee shop debating whether or not the videos and photos were real. If they had been doctored or photoshopped. This is the society we have wrought through sheer silliness-when the realities of life are considered less truthful and questioned when presented because of the shady crap pulled by companies to tell us what our reality should be so they can make more money.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw my hot chocolate in their faces. What will it take?

Travel companies have long made gobs of money off selling polar bear excursions in Manitoba. The bears are exotic and dangerous and, of course, people want the adventure badge for their collection.

But polar bears like all others are living breathing creatures, dependent on climate circumstance and healthy food chain just like us. We have not played our responsible role as a collective in ensuring both for them and so many other creatures of this earth.

And it makes me so incredibly sad.

Nostalgia rising and falling

To combat this sadness and hopelessness, I surrounded myself with snow-themed books and movies. I am well aware privilege allows me to do this.

In particular, I re-read a lovely poem by Mary Oliver called “First Snow“. It is so evocative of what it feels like to watch the snow fall and its effects on the physical nature around us and on the emotional nature within us.

I kept thinking of “The Starry Night“, the famous painting by Vincent van Gogh afterwards. The painting was based on summer skies, I believe, but the textured swirls always seemed like snow flurries punctuated by the bright stars to me.

But there is no snow here. There is little to no snow in the far North for the suffering polar bears.

Where there is snow is in my memory, in my mind, in my heart, in my soul. While it is not enough to change the world back to what it needs to be or force a forward movement to where we need to go, it does provide me with hope and peace for a first snow again displayed against a starry night.

Not just for me, but everyone and everything.