The Weight of Still Water

The mountain does not hurry. It has waited for the ice to retreat, for the stone to settle, for the wind to find its path through the pass. We often mistake stillness for absence. We think that because a thing does not move, it is not working. But the water in the high places is always working. It is carving the basin, smoothing the edges, holding the reflection of a sky that has seen centuries of the same silence. There is a coldness that clarifies. It strips away the unnecessary noise of the lowlands, leaving only the bone of the earth. To stand before such a place is to realize how little of our own history is actually required here. The lake does not ask for our names. It only asks that we look, and in looking, perhaps we find a way to be as quiet as the stone. What remains when the wind finally stops?

Aarthi Ramamurthy has taken this beautiful image titled Snow Lake. It captures the exact moment where the earth holds its breath. Does the silence reach you as it reached me?