Fire + Ice

cosmic battles are satisfyingly beautiful

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Capturing the Sun, Jan Blencowe ©2025

The other night I sat in the kitchen having my dinner, roast chicken and sweet potatoes. As I sat, I gazed out the kitchen window over our property. The immediate yard and garden slope gently downward. Then a small wooded hill rises up. On the opposite side, there is a long pond, and beyond the water, another higher wooded hill rises up.

The sky was streaked with clouds, some like shreds of fabric, some like sheets of cotton batting. The sun was setting and had already slipped behind the dark line of naked trees. A month out from the winter solstice, and we’ve gained about 35 minutes of daylight on our long, cold march towards spring. But the days are still short, not even ten hours yet, more or less 9 hours and 40 minutes give or take a few minutes.

So, the darkness still prevails.

This particular night, there was snow on the ground, which had melted a bit in the day's sunlight but froze again as dusk settled over the land.

Sunset moves quickly in January. As the sun flamed and burned behind the screen of trees, the fabric of the sky struggled to hold the clash of elements. The fiery sun was sinking inexorably downward and seemed to touch the icy rim of the hillside.

On this otherwise quiet January evening, at dinner time, right before my eyes through the kitchen window, a great battle played out.

In the vast expanse, where the sun burns fiercely as the rising moon cradles the chill of night, a fierce battle rages. A cosmic clash of fire and ice. The flames, wild and untamed, leap and writhe, their golden tongues flickering in a dance of defiance. Each shimmer from the setting sun carries the weight of ancient fury, seeking to consume the encroaching darkness before it disappears behind the distant hill. The snow and ice stand resolute, and blanket the hillside with a crystalline shimmering like a million captive stars. As the chill of night’s descending darkness sends out its frosty breath, the frozen water in the pond cracks and groans. The displaced frozen shards shatter in the air. The sun continues to fall, radiant and bold, while the ice retaliates with an elegance that freezes the heart. This is a clash of elements where heat and cold duel on the knife-edge of a winter’s night, neither willing to yield, caught in an eternal embrace of destruction and rebirth. In this eternal duel, the very essence of life and death dances, a reminder that within every spark lies the potential for frost, and that every crystal reflects a flicker of flame.

In the cold and dreary months, it’s good to let the imagination play, to see cosmic battles in the sky outside the kitchen window. Follow fancies in your mind’s eye, daydream and night-dream, listen to the stories of the elements, and sing along to the songs of the stones and the snow.

Even in these cold, dark months, there is wonder all around. Seek it out and savor it when you find it. The drama outside your kitchen window is far more beautiful, terrible, and true than you would suspect at first glance. We are continually seduced by screens and virtual worlds. Reject their advances and instead open your eyes to the glories all around you. Your soul is longing for what is Real. Seek the Real, and you will surely find it, and when you do, everything will change, for finally your soul will be flooded with beauty that satisfies and water that quenches your inner thirst for meaning and belonging. Gazing at sunsets through kitchen windows is a good way to begin.

Enjoy every moment of the year. Each month is a gift, each season of life filled with goodness beyond measure.

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