The ghost of snow

What they give me – and give us – belongs to the illusion of a perfect world. Surrounded by pettiness and ugliness, perhaps one day, one Christmas or another, we may have the gift of seeing on our tree this delicate, precious, and graceful white owl, a messenger of peace and wisdom.

I have traveled and continue to travel to the farthest reaches of the north and south of the world, with my camera hanging around my neck. When someone asks me why I wander so deeply into the heart of nature, perhaps I don’t even know the answer myself. There’s a ghost inside me that I meet journey after journey, expedition after expedition. It’s a friendly ghost. I have come to understand who it is and where it goes. It is me, engaged in an endless “challenge” with my mind, my history, my desires, and my body – or perhaps it is a “duende,” a flamenco spirit, that stirs with equal intensity both the world’s expectations and my own expectations of myself. Work, money, family, and daily life have claimed a good part of my time, which, despite our aspiration to the eternal, is fortunately limited. But that ghost occupies all the remaining space: I have realized that my “avatar” is literally infinite. It is I who decide how far to push my thoughts. Perhaps today I am once again confronting freezing temperatures, relentless wind, and the risk of staring ever closer into the eyes of a polar bear, but tomorrow might bring a deep reflection on infinity, on universal thought, on the unconfined spaces of perception. Many times I have lost strength and felt the depression brought by cold, wind, and fatigue. And yet in those moments, my mind forced me to place one foot in front of the other, to keep moving: my ghost traces the path and surpasses physical limits; it is fully aware.

In an extremely cold region of Canada, something belonging to my infinite, ghostly self flies silently; something that perhaps has long existed, and today certainly exists, within me. Now it is motionless here beside me, beneath an unceasing snowfall, at thirty degrees below zero. Standing a few meters away, among an ikebana of yellow sticks, white, amid the pure white, it looks at me. There is no doubt. We always feel that whoever looks at us is drawn to our external form, to our appearance; yet it looks inside me, with bright yellow eyes, in a near-absolute silence. Just as thinking of my ghost opens a door to the infinite, so too does this gaze open a passage into infinity, into the void, into silence.

I realize that all of this is an invaluable luxury: the silence, the absolute whiteness, the absence, the emptiness, the darkness. It is a privilege we struggle to perceive as such because it has nothing ambiguous or material about it, unlike almost everything else in life that we consume in society—marked by the urgency to appear, to occupy space, jostling in a small, old world ever more tied to petty conflicts shaped around personal advantage that seems real but is not. To display, to perform on the creaking stage of a confined life, is exactly like characters in search of an author—unable to be, when deprived of someone before whom they might appear. This luxury, to immerse oneself without asking anything in return, in the fullness of nature, is instead “only” a gift of solitude and reflection, without spectators. This luxury cannot be bought, nor inherited. It is special.

This white ghost may well be my avatar. Its silence, mine, and this fantastic enchantment are the very best one could ask of our existence here and now: the perfection of life. Like Athena, Minerva, and Harry Potter, this Hedwig sublimates philosophy and wisdom. The audience has vanished, and with it the denominator—or perhaps the constant—of a trivial chess game played by amateur players. It narrows its eyes slightly before taking flight, and its flight is silent, contemplative. The movement of its wings is almost imperceptible, cutting through the wind and the stinging snowfall, while it rotates its round head, as if its eyes are fixed on a world in constant motion, yet attentive to a precise point known only to it. Watching this snowy owl, so long desired and imagined, and trying to sense its life, I came to understand the meaning of the word “to hover”: it is not merely a physical motion—it is grace, lightness, suspension. Known as the “snowy owl” to English speakers, and the “civetta delle nevi” in our sweet language, yet a true owl in every sense, it is one of the magnificent presences of the circumpolar fauna. Like many true and authentic indigenous beings of life, its existence is vulnerable.

The Bubo scandiacus either hovers or remains motionless on the bare sticks of a merciless winter: every small movement, every slightest sound is for it the signal of a tiny lemming, a hidden mammal attempting to escape its destined meal. Almost like a living sonar, it picks up in the silence of the snow the sounds of life – or perhaps the gentle flutter of a small bird – and in this way it survives, in the harshest ecosystem on the planet, migrating very little between cold and more cold. It is true that a few orphaned individuals have appeared farther south, for reasons unknown, for some incomprehensible cause. Every time I think of that frozen carcass of a leopard on Kilimanjaro, “the house of God,” which moved Ernest Hemingway, I am no less moved by the thought that, perhaps like the cave bear, we know very little of the curiosity of these magnificent beings, of the paths they follow through life, just as we do along the trails of thought, curiosity, and learning.

I have learned the mystery of being “a part” – that is, of sharing a place and a moment of both my life and theirs. This owl does not fear me, it is not wary; it is empathetic, or perhaps resilient, to my presence. I do not try to hide, but I do seek only “discretion.” I am not merely a spectator; I have a role in its life just as it has a role in mine. This mysterious marvel, which moves through history alongside its kind, owes perhaps its alternating reputation – to some, a bearer of witchcraft and malevolent magic, to others a symbol of philosophy and wisdom, or even divinity – to the way it appears and lives. As has often happened, this is one of the most incredible encounters life has granted me. Reflective, regal, aware, it moves through its world in ways I could never emulate. For this reason, I inevitably delude myself into thinking it is no accident, reading in its elegance and harmony the aspirations of my ghost. The resonance, the coherence – or perhaps it is the envy of Icarus.

Being here and now, after reading Roar Solheim, is a unique privilege. I have no difficulty believing that for the ancient inhabitants of this very land, this white owl was a sacred, divine animal—a messenger between the earthly and the otherworldly. This symbolic and luminous protective power has earned it the full right to be one of Quebec’s symbols. It was only on the third day that I realized our affinities and wondered whether I might have other incredible encounters when the lights gift that enchanted moment that separates night from day, and day from night. I will pay the price of even harsher temperatures, but this will be neither the first nor the last time. This is how I seek movement, color, and form, composed through the direction of flight and the gaze: this is interpretation and creativity.

Certainly, this creature, which bears the “signs” of divinity, owes its seductive charm to these moments of transitional light and color, just as we ourselves are equally captivated and enchanted by the passage from night to day, and from day to night, in our own lives. In the many days that followed, I sought the vibrations dear to me – the essence of my best images – and for the rest of the time, I simply watched, sitting or lying on the snow. I allowed myself the privilege and the right to learn how much of myself this fleeting presence in my existence permits me to discover. It is truly the ghost of snow, a unique being, a masterpiece of the planet: made of matter, yet at the same time inspiring abstract legends and sensations. As always, I speak once again of myself and of them, because from our encounters arises the most authentic and simple emotion of my life. I continue to experience these moments with the wonder of a child and the wisdom of one navigating their best years. What they give me – and give us – belongs to the illusion of a perfect world. Surrounded by pettiness and ugliness, perhaps one day, one Christmas or another, we may have the gift of seeing on our tree this delicate, precious, and graceful white owl, a messenger of peace and wisdom.