When all you have is love... The lesson of the ice flowers
Danièle Starenkyj©2016 www.publicationsorion.com
It's snowing. Sitting in the living room by the window, I watch the snowflakes fall. Gently, without jostling, the ice stars, falling freely, land on the ground.
I am amazed. And my delight rises a notch when I suddenly remember that since the dawn of time, there have not been two snow crystals like this that have come down to us from the clouds.
From Descartes to today, including Robert Hooke—one of the first to use the microscope in 1665—and Frances Knowlton Chickering—the wife of a minister in Maine, who in 1864 pioneered the art of observing snow flowers—and Wilson Bentley—the first to develop the art of photographing snow crystals in 1885—this is absolutely certain: the probability that two snow crystals—which can contain billions of billions of water molecules—are composed of exactly the same arrangement of molecules is ridiculously small. It could snow day and night until the sun went out before two snowflakes were exactly alike (1).
Temporary works of art, each with its own unique personality, these ice flowers with their hexagonal symmetry – like that of tulips – arouse enthusiasm in the observer, that exhilarating and intense emotion that pushes us to joyful action. But when it ceases to illuminate our lives, it signals our dismay.
It's still snowing. I continue my reflection. These billions of billions of differences are what make life the great adventure that excites, excites, and fascinates everyone who loves it. Each specimen of life is unique, and therefore different.
Real life is anti-monotony, anti-uniformity, anti-boredom, anti-standardization, anti-homogeneity, anti-flatness.
Strangely, as I recount in my latest book (2), it was snowflakes that saved me from an abstract, theoretical, passive life. At the age of 19, a philosophy student and newlywed, I read in these hieroglyphs from cloudy lands the call to love "others and their faces" (É. Levinas), and to put others before things.
I sigh. If the infinite diversity of ice crystals is a source of wonder, why should the absolute and incredible disparity of humans be something to fight against? Isn't each one a unique jewel, an exclusive masterpiece?
The cornerstone of every human being is a man and a woman, a father and a mother, each marked by the indelible and irremediable difference of their genetic, physiological, hormonal, psychological and behavioral specificity, and this, from fertilization and the formation of the very first cells.
A man. A woman. The joy of difference...
Why do we rejoice in this happiness when it comes to microscopic snow sculptures, and deny it, fight it, and criticize it when it comes to couples?
The war of the sexes is deadly (3). It produces the devastation of lovelessness. And one of its destructive weapons for millions of couples who could have peacefully lived their dream of love is this desire – which we want to be legitimate – to change the other so that they are like us. We refuse to admire the other's differences. We become angry at not being able to make them bend to our demands. And we humiliate them as much as we want.
I invite you to think differently, in order to learn to love unconditionally. For a time, we will look at the ways to exercise the talent of love that we all have. Love is a precious grace. It must not be despised. Love is an art, it alone gives the heart and the mind the joy of living . Because when we have only love... we have everything, we are everything, we can do everything (4). Danièle Starenkyj©2016 www.publicationsorion.com
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
1. Libbrecht K., Rasmussen P., Snowflakes – The Secret Beauty of Winter, Les Éditions de l'Homme, 2003.
2. Starenkyj D., Reflections for a Better Life, p.19, 20, Orion, 2015.
3. A Kyoto for love © 2016, text by Danièle Starenkyj.
4. Starenkyj D., What a Woman's Heart Wants , Orion, 2012. (English version available under the title: Woman's True Desire, Orion, 2015).
Leave a comment