Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Virtutes divinae in res diffusae Spring’s Message to Winter ALICE O. HOWELL A goodly time ago when I was flirting with middle age, I found myself marooned in a depressing month of early March. I was living in a flat over a garage on an estate on Long Island, finding myself single after a painful divorce from years of a tyrannical relationship. The job I loved was terminating and I had longings for an unattainable love. A fairly classic situation, I now realize. I wrote him letters and left them in the mailbox to be picked up by the postman. The mailbox was a long walk through trees and bushes and impossible to view from the house to see if the mail had come. On this particularly cold and grey morning I noticed some little snowdrops just emerging at the corner of the garage, but when I came home from work it began to snow again, and by the time it stopped there were three feet of it piled up everywhere. The ensuing blizzard paralyzed the entire area. I thought of and felt like the snowdrops. Locked at home, I wallowed in self-pity and despair. Two weeks passed. The snow melted. My friend telephoned once but no hoped-for letter appeared. And then on an absolutely miserable morning, after I had trekked twice for the mail and found none, I walked back, and under an apple tree I saw a wet, brown, wrinkled old apple sodden on the ground. It looked exactly the way I felt. So I took my boot-covered right foot and deliberately and petulantly smooshed it! When I looked at the collapsed mess, I received a shock. About five luminous black wet apple pips glared back at me! They were shouting as loud as they could “In the midst of death, there is life! In the midst of despair, there is a future! There is a purpose to all grief -- the fruit to come of it is wisdom.†I remember that moment well and can see myself standing hulked in my dark blue parka staring in wonder and amazement at this attack of insight. I bent down and carefully gathered the pips in my mittens and carried them back to the house only to be greeted by another miracle: the snowdrops had bloomed and were teasing me. “See, little as we are, we were stronger than those three feet of snow!†I carried in the pips and dropped them in a saucer. Then I went out and picked three of the tender snowdrops and put them in a tiny vase and brought both up to the small altar I had for meditation. I was both ashamed and filled with gratitude. I shed tears of relief. The next morning, the book I was studying quoted the alchemist Agrippa von Nettesheim†“Virtutes divinae in res diffusae.†“Divine forces are diffused in things.†Only a few years later, I was to lecture around the world and would write this quotation on the board the very first thing. The lectures led to my being invited to teach aboard a cruise around the Mediterranean to a group of two hundred people anxious to visit sacred sites in Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Jugoslavia and Rome. Among these passengers was the love of my life, Walter Andersen. With white hair on both our heads, we married and spent eighteen wonderful years together. He went on ahead of me eight years ago leaving me with a heart overflowing with love and joy. Now I am eighty-three as I write this. The snowdrops here in New England bloom in early April. As I looked at them the other day, they murmured, “See, we told you so.†Alice O. Howell is the author of THE BEEJUM BOOK, THE DOVE IN THE STONE, THE WEB IN THE SEA, and other books. Her latest is THE HEAVENS DECLARE::Astrological Ages and the Evolution of Consciousness. She lives in the Berkshires. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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