02/11/2026
It seems mystically fitting that between the Wolf Moon and Snow Moon, my little Snowy wolf leapt through the portal to the great beyond… And at the same time, it has felt extra ironic and horrible that Snowy fell so suddenly catastrophically ill and died before he could get to experience the magic of his favorite season again.
To have him taken from me at all, but especially on my birthday, was utterly gutting. I never wanted to have to say goodbye to my baby boy polar bear snowpea prince, though I knew the day would one day come. He was 10, but I had hoped we’d have at least a few more years together…
Snow was his sacred element, and he never wanted to come inside when the temperatures dropped, because he was born for the ice and snow. It was magical, getting to see him enjoy it, just a few special times, here in Texas…That fluffy husky lived for brisk weather, and adored bounding & zooming through the few opportunities we’ve had snowfall down here in Texas.
It just happened so fast — and it all feels harsh and exceptionally unfair, but I’m trying to remember that The Hag of Winter’s grip on life and land isn’t personal. One day our loved ones can be romping and running, and in the next moment, just… Gone.
She takes without a rhyme or reason that we humans can understand — no matter what stories we tell, or how we attempt to make meaning from it all.
When Imbolc came round again this year, I found myself wishing fervently for winter to be over, and for spring to return to the earth. Apparently, both the groundhog and Cailleach say there will be more winter yet, but it’s been warming up a bit, and I’m grateful for the respite from the chill.
I haven’t felt motivated to write or share much, other than my grieving process — especially on social media. I’ve been giving myself space, time, and permission to go through it all, as I need to. And I am changing how I show up here, anyway. I still don’t totally know what that looks like, but I do know that this loss portal is some kind of inflection point for me — and being more fallow (as the earth is now) feels right, currently.
I’m just stripped bare of artifice, at this point — like the black branches outside my window, leaves all becoming mulch, soil, dust. Just the rough outlines of what we are when everything that shielded us, nurtured and fed us has fallen away. It’s a stark silhouette.
Imbolc has passed, but the Cailleach, Hag of Winter stalks the land in many places still — drawing the icicles down, and painting everything in shades of white and grey. Spring seems more possible than it has, though everything is still pretty dead and brown here. I long for that bright and tender green!
We have to trust that it is coming — that the goddess-saint Brighid will return life to the land, and her bright flame to our hearts.
I’ve been thinking a lot about something My beloved Aunt Ruthie was saying back in November about how she never knows if she will live to survive another winter. Part of me hates it when she talks like this, because she’s my favorite and I don’t like to think about her not being here — but another part of me appreciates her being real with herself, and with me.
Because we pretend that death isn’t inevitable — that the ones we love the most will be somehow immune to its steely grasp. But many of our ancestors were intimately acquainted with the reality that winter was often a killing time — and that not every living thing would make it through. Our vulnerable elders, especially — but also little children, the too early lambs, and even our strongest guardians and protectors.
Winter can be unspeakably cruel — though we are a bit removed and numbed to that fact by all the comforts and ease most of us enjoy in this day and time. But our ancestors, who struggled to survive through another winter, huddled around a fire with not enough soup knew it all too well.
The cold can kill, the freeze will take not only our plants, the green and growing things — but also sometimes the flesh and blood beings. Even crueler when those deaths come at the hands of other human beings…
During this dark night of the soul I’ve been enduring, my sorrow has been deepened by the horrific injustices happening all around me — innocent people executed at the hands of violent and corrupt regimes. Renee Good, Keith Porter, and Alex Pretti — all murdered in cold blood by ICE agents for no reason, other than to exert control, destroy life, incite violence, and make people more afraid. We know that cruelty is the point, for them. And we will not let their cruelty make us like them.
We turn our fierce and tender hearts towards all the people mourning and grieving Renee, Keith, and Alex right now. All the people hiding and fearful in their homes. And towards all the little children…
For Liam Conejo Ramos, only 5 years old — a little baby bunny boy, who was held in a prison, and allowed to sicken, far from his mother and home. Thank god he was released, but his fight is not over. (And no, that wasn’t him at the Bad Bunny concert, y’all! That would be messed up.) And the struggle goes on for so many other children stolen from their homes, and incarcerated for no reason (including the ones held here in Texas) who are crying out for LIBERTAD, for freedom.
At the same time, more than 90,000 people in Iran have been shot down in the streets — also fighting for their lives, for their freedom. We are living through such unspeakably heavy times, and to have the year begin and unfold immediately into such hideousness is hard on the spirit. Especially when few seem to notice, or to care.
I am heartened only by the strength and kindness of the people I see rising up, helping one another up, washing mace and tear gas out of each other’s eyes, marching in cold and snow, trying to protect their neighbors.
I saw someone online ask this: “Mister Rogers taught us to look for the helpers, but what do we do when they’re killing the helpers?”
I think the only option is to step up behind them, and become a helper — in whatever way we are able. I’m grateful to still be able to do that, in my way, for the people who seek me out, and for others in my community and beyond…
I am grateful to have been able to take some time off to be taken care of myself — to lay in bed and weep, and be broken by the cruelty of this world, and this winter.
The night I brought Snowy home from the vet in a cardboard coffin, I screamed and sobbed over his still body — and for all the kind, good, lovely people who have been taken away by death (and worst of all at the hands of other human beings). I wailed WHY WHY WHY?! Why should the lovely, generous, creative, wonderful people die while these awful, hateful, selfish rotten fu***ng people keep taking more and more control of our lives, and wreaking more havoc and destruction? I do not understand it. I never, ever will.
The only thing that’s getting me through all this is the kindness and love of my friends and community, buoying me up. I could not have gone through this agony without their support — both direct and immediate, and all the generosity and sympathy surrounding me from hundreds of miles away…
I know it must be the same for folks in Minnesota right now, and other places where winter is hitting hard, and the streets are filled with broken people with guns, whose hearts have turned to ice.
Let’s survive this winter friends — and grieve mightily for the ones who have not. Raise a glass for them at the Vernal Equinox and treasure the warm sun on our faces, knowing we made it through a very cruel winter, somehow.
p.s. These photos & videos of Snowy (& Moon & Grrizelda) frolicking in the snow during Austin’s 2021 Snowpocalypse — which was a delight for my dogs, but a traumatic event of dire hardship & death for too many Texans when our grid failed. Grrizelda died only a month later, the day before the Vernal Equinox. Winter is a season of paradoxes — wonder & pain, sometimes in equal measure. But no matter what — one day, it’s over. And Spring always returns.
❄️🪽🕯️☁️❤️🩹
